American Stout TransAtlantic Stout

UPDATE: Award-winning beer! Details below.

After much research, and back-and-forth indecision, I settled on a recipe that is sort of a cross between a Foreign Extra Stout, and an American Stout. Trans-Atlantic, if you will. I was going for a sort of “grapefruit marmalade on toast” effect, and it came out really nice. The grapefruit effect is rather muted; I could add another ounce of Cascade at flameout next time, but it’s very good the way it is.

ETA: Google has just informed me that the name has been used before – several times in fact. Oh well.

9 lbs. 2-Row Pale
1 lb. Munich Malt 10L
2 lbs. Flaked Barley
12 oz. C120
12 oz. C60
8 oz. Crisp Roasted Barly 550L
8 oz. Briess Roasted Barley 300L

0.5 oz. Centennial 60 min.
0.5 oz. Centennial 30 min.
1.0 oz. Centennial 10 min.
1.0 oz. Cascade 5 min.

1 tsp. Yeast nutrient 10 min.

In my sample group testing, this stout scored very well among both hop heads and malt lovers. The 2# flaked gives it a nice body without being "chewy", as well as a dense creamy head. The roastiness is well established without being dusty or astringent. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Cheers!

picked up the ingredients yesterday for something scary similar, glad to know it worked well!

So, an update: This beer (with modified hopping) just took 1st place in its category (out of 29 entrants) at the MidwinterHBC in Madison, WI. I'll have to wait about a week to get the judges' comments, but I'm pretty damn pleased.

Over the past year, I got some interesting feedback from two veteran Irish beer drinkers. One said, "It's as good as anything you can get in a pub in Dublin;" while the other one made a face and said, "There's something odd about the taste." I reckoned that Cascade hops weren't what he expected to find.

This time I played it straight, with 1.5 oz EKG at 60, and the other half ounce at 10 minutes. The malt bill stayed the same. Oh yeah, I used 1084 yeast.

So yeah, it's a fairly standard recipe. But it works!

Cheers,