Good Stouts for beginners?

Good grief! You consider those as "beginner" stouts? Especially Goose Island BCBS, Deschutes The Abyss and Founders Imperial Stout. So many people commenting here, either don't know the difference or don't understand what the OP is asking for. This is not: "What's Your Favorite Imperial Stout?" thread.

 

To be fair, OP did ask for awesome wintery stouts

 

OP - this is your answer, and availability will depend on your market. Then if you want to move on to imperial stouts, barrel-aged stuff, etc., there are plenty of recommendations for those in the rest of this thread.

 

Especially the Special Double Cream Stout.

 

For a while a local sports bar had the Mac on tap, I might go see if they still do.

 

You cannot go wrong with Founders Breakfast Stout, Sierra Nevada Narwhal, or if local Victory Storm King. Great stouts - period.

 

There is a lot of fun just jumping in with both feet and trying lots of them. i.e. Don't worry about learning which one is widely regarded as "best." Even the stouts you don't really click with will still be interesting and educational experiences. Probably more sensible to buy singles than six packs or four packs of new-to-you beers, but generally just go for it.

 

Deschutes, Samuel Smith, Odell, and Sierra Nevada are what get a lot of people around here into darker beers. I see Left Hand in "build your own six pack" deals all the time which gets people past the "ew, there's milk in this thing?" phase and into the "this stuff is delicious" phase, Tallgrass also has their Vanilla Bean Buffalo Sweat around this time which is great but ends up stuck at the very top of the coolers here and people forget it exists.

Something a little bigger (but I think is still good for beginners, especially around the cold holidays) is North Coast Old Rasputin with cheesecake, chocolate cake, brownies, chocolate peanut butter silk pie, etc. etc. after dinner. There are a handful of other "good for adventurous beginners" Imperial Stouts and big Porters that I could put here too, but I'll leave it at that.

 

Yeah, you have to begin with lower ABV Stouts that are more approachable and less aggressive. Once you're used to those, you can begin to explorer bolder and fuller flavors. Pretty simple and easy to understand.

 

The Samuel Smith Oatmeal stout is very good starter not to heavy and the Left Hand Milk is also very good too for starters

 

In Jersey I'd go with anything from Carton or Kane.

 

I was in your shoes not too long ago (and kinda still feel that I am a newbie to that world of beer). Being from NC, I have never experienced any issues with Duck Rabbit and would certainly recommend their milk stout as it was a go-to for me getting into stouts. I also second all of the left hand milk stout recommendations as well. Very delicious and easy!

Since you mentioned you wanted to maybe hunt some down....not sure of distribution, but.... Oskar Blues Hotbox Porter and Terrapin Moo Hoo chocolate milk stout.

Good luck! And dive in!

 

Why? That's utter nonsense, there's no good reason one would 'have to begin with lower ABV Stouts'. Just drink different beers and see what you like. It's really THAT simple

 

I second the Victory Storm King recommendation. I used to be a dedicated 100% IPA guy with the more bitter the better. I had sampled some stouts, but found the sweetness unappealing. Storm King was the first stout I tried that was more on the bitter side of the flavor spectrum and allowed me to transition to an appreciation for the darker style of beers.

 

I started with oatmeal stouts and milk stouts for my first few months as I got Into the deeper richer flavored stouts.

I don't think I could have gone right to FBS without having some initial impressions on the genre at large.

Op mentions liking guinness. So there is some history and context. I would just slowly rank it up from there. Also look for foreign extra stouts. Guinness has a foreign extra Stout that I used to see around town with yellow labels. It was basically an amped up regular Guinness. But many other breweries do the dry Stout well too.

Involving coffee right away is tricky. As an adjunct, you may be only tasting that and not all of the great roasty toasty specialty malt.

I second the left hand milk stout recommendation (unless you like the nitro mouthfeel, I'd stick with regular.) I also recommend Anderson valley Barney flats oatmeal stouts, and Deschutes obsidian as more straight forward stouts

 

This 100%! Thank you!

 

Although I haven't had one in a while, Anchor Porter was one of my favorites. Pretty widely available as well.

 

@IPAExpert69
I can donate some bottles to your cause as I'm cleaning out my cellar inventory. PM me if you're interested and I'll send a box over. You have nothing to lose.

Expedition
Sunday Morning
KBS
Ten Fidy
Old Rasputin
Founders Breakfast