Hello again, Stouts.

Stouts are my go too but ipas are next in line. I spread them out evenly, mainly because I'm finding non BA stouts aren't doing it for me anymore.

 

Funny you bring this up I'm really in the same boat. For years I loved my stouts. Then I sort of stopped when found the hop. I've been drinking mainly hoppy ales of all sorts for years now.

Being a huge 3Floyds fan (while living in Nor-Cal this is tough), a friend sent me a Moloko Milk Stout. I was so prepared to hate it, that I made sure to have friends near by to finish it after I hated it. Well, it was fantastic! This has sent me back down the path of discovering big bad stouts.

I have found I'm still not a fan of generic stouts. I need an Imperial, a double, something with a lot going on. I've even found some Porters (Russian River Shadow of a doubt) that I, again was ready to hate, really enjoyed.

I'm never going to give up my IPAs. But my palate is again expanding.

I still don't like sour beers. I don't like sour anything for that matter....

 

I started out drinking IPA's all of the time when I first ventured into craft beer. Stouts became my next step(which are still my favorite) and I still drink those quite a bit. Where I am at now, I can appreciate all beer styles and can always pick out something I like in just about every style. Beer is just awesome I guess that is what I am trying to say.

 

Hmmmm...a 'Stout' thread for people who don't like Stouts

I guess I'll just let myself out...

 

PRECISELY. I was into hoppy ales, mostly IPAs when NOBODY was drinking hoppy ales. I'm kind of hopped out now. Maybe it's because I'm getting older (my ale loving son and daughter-in-law are still quaffing the IPAs) but I started yearning for somthing smoother. Now I'm into porters and stouts. The smoothness adds to the quaffability. Like BUTTAH......

 

Funny you should mention this because I too recently got back in to Stouts, namely Oatmeal Stouts, Founders Breakfast Stout to be more specific - if I could afford to (and I was a raging alcoholic) I would drink a bottle of this for breakfast every day.

Damn you Americans are spoiled for choice when it comes to great craft beers!

 

Stout is my favorite style followed by porter, I like IPAs but I really need to be in the mood for one. Bitterness in beers just gets overwhelming, I like bitter but not every time I have a beer.

 

I never lose sight of stouts .

 

I drink ipas after softball games, mowing the lawn, work, and even just recreational drinking and I love them. But I've purposely been stashing away different BIG imperial stouts for the times I want to enjoy one which is about once a month.

Founders breakfast stout, old raspy, and ten fidy got me into them in the fall and I've been hooked since.

 

Quaffing AND quaffability in the same post?!?! The quaff police are coming after you, hard.

 

Not to get all curmudgeonly, but this is the something like the third thread I've seen this week in defense of stouts. And I'm a stout drinker! But where are the threads in support of brown ales or ESBs? Now those are styles that need some love.

Not to completely threadjack, I frequently think that people pit stouts against IPAs because they believe that each is the standard bearer in an epic struggle between malts and hops. And while each style may emphasize one of these ingredients, we would do well to remember that hops are just as intrinsic to stouts as malts are to IPAs. Without both ingredients, it simply isn't beer. (I'll spare you my diatribe on sours/wilds and yeast. For now.)

 

I like IPA's when the weather turns warm. I almost look forward to cold weather because I love the stouts and pumpkin beers so much. To me the fall/winter is the best beer drinking season. I slow down quite a bit in the summer with drinking. Between cycling, running, and swimming I lose some weight too, but those stouts are always in the cellar waiting for the weather to turn cold.

 

I always have a balanced fridge of stouts/IPA's and everything in-between. I cant' seem to focus on a single style any given night. Though I do go on "kicks" such as pilsners in the summer.

 

I completely understand. I was caught up in the hops, the more the merrier. Then my friend got a kbs and he couldn't grab me one because it was a 1 bottle limit. So I wanted one just because I couldn't have one. Finally made a trade for a couple (cost me some heady topper but so worth it) and holy crap! I've been hunting the next big stout, porter and black ipa since.

 

Seems like brown ales are always looked over. Some of my favorites were discontinued... SN Tumbler, Sixpoint Brownstone, even Sam Adams Brown ale was good but gone now.

 

It gets cold in Texas???

 

I don't know that it's fair to call oatmeal stouts or milk stouts "flavored." That would be like calling wheat bears or rye pale ales flavored. Regardless, there are plenty of rich, flavorful, incredibly complex stouts and porters that are neither imperial or flavored.

 

Not all adjuncts are created equally, IMO. Oatmeal changes the texture of the stout more than anything, and if viewed as a grain (which it is), it is more "natural" to a stout's makeup than, say, coffee, which far more impacts its flavor profile.