Good Stouts for beginners?

I would also recommend Founder’s Breakfast Stout. Perhaps North Coast Old Rasputin and Modern Times Blackhouse Stout.

 

Not sure where you are ..im exit 63 on the GSP. Long beach island. I can find good stuff occasionally but its a lot of shore and beach type beers and very limited in the winter. If you are the atlantic city area or further south, joe canals is the spot for a ton of stuff i get including in state brewers and new stuff like Industrial Arts and Brotherton. Im unfamiliar with anything southwest nj like paulsboro. But in that west side in burlington area, roger wilcos and canals are also great for finds. Toms river does well but i go to Absecon/ AC for stuff like that twice a mont .

 

There a taproom on rt 30 in absecon. Idk if its a brewery or not but its next to a wawa right off the parkeway. Exit 40 going east but its on the west side

 

Garden state brewing its called. Right off exit 40. Nanobrewery. Fairly new.

 

Honestly, if you're just getting into stouts I'd suggest trying more the standard examples of the style as opposed to ones with adjuncts or any kind of flavoring or barrel aging (which, don't get me wrong can be phenomenal but it's good to establish a baseline)

Try some of these:

Sierra Nevada Stout
Sierra Nevada Narwhal
Deschutes Obsidian Stout
Oskar Blues Ten Fidy
North Coast Old Rasputin
Samuel Smith's Imperial Stout
Left Hand Milk Stout (regular or nitro but I honestly like the regular more unless it's on tap)
Belhaven Black Stout


All should be relatively easy to find and are pretty affordable

Cheers!

 

If you can get your hands on it. Quite lovely on draught, may I add.

 

Regular stouts and porters aren't sexy enough, man! To be cool, everything must be high ABV and, preferably, bourbon barrel aged. Extra points for spices and lactose and stuff.

 

Flying Dog Pearl Necklace
Everyone says Old Rasputin - for a reason
Duck Rabbit's Russian Imperial is very approachable.

I don't think Founder's Breakfast Stout is out of bounds. It's the first stout I had to broaden my horizons.

You're already a Guinness fan. Both the 200th Anniversary Export and Antwerpen Stout are good.

Yard's Chocolate Love Stout.

Any Southern Tier Blackwater series stout- they're practically desserts.

For porters, I'm a fan of Yard's George Washington Tavern Porter and Einstock's Roasted Porter.

 

Left Hand Milk Stout and Samuel Smith's Stouts are good places to start. The Sam Smith RIS is a good stater to get into the style, it's relatively light at 7% abv.

 

Being nitpicky, I wouldn't say Double Chocolate is a milk stout. I'd call it a "sweet stout" since it's not brewed with lactose, but rather, a proprietary blend of sugars (as far as I know). I view all milk stouts as a subcategory of sweet stouts. The thing that makes me look silly, is that some brewers have actually called their non-lactose sweet stouts "milk stouts." The joys of beer marketing.

 

But.... https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/style/82/

 

You're giving me too little info to know your objection.

If you provided the link because you are interpreting the "/ " as "=" in the BeerAdvocate style list, I believe you are misinterpreting it.

If you provided it because it says "usually lactose," that's not enough for me to rethink what I'm saying. Disclaimer - I'm assuming that any "milk stout" that is not made with lactose is an outlier in the big picture. If they are more common than that, then it's a blind spot that I have and I'd like to know more. Without that, I'm happy to subscribe to the idea that a milk stout is made with lactose. That's why it's a "milk" stout. Maybe I don't have a good big picture view here. A brewer can make a black beer and call it a kolsch, but that won't change the idea that a kolsch isn't black unless there are enough beers that also subscribe to that idea.

 

Milk Stout = Sweet Stout
Sweet Stout = Milk Stout

 

I'd recommend smooth, easy drinking stouts for newbies. One of my early stouts I really started to love was Samuel Smith's imperial stout. (Oatmeal stout would be a good choice too.)

Old Rasputin is an old standbye too but is higher in ABV.

 

I was gonna say that we’ll have to agree to disagree... and that your position disagrees with your link... but I’m rethinking my stance. I’m kinda being the fool by thinking that the fuzzy beer world would stick to a logic. If there are lots of beers that are called milk stouts by brewers that aren’t using lactose, and if there are barely any beers called sweet stouts made without lactose, then I’d obviously soften my POV considerably. By your logic, I suppose you are fine with the thought that a milk stout does not need to have lactose. Perhaps I’ll get there.

 

I'm not aware of any Milk/Sweet Stouts that don't contain lactose. And there's no need to be Mr. Smarty Pants.

@JackHorzempa @jesskidden your help is needed here. Thank you!

 

You have misread my tone if I came across as being a smarty pants to you. That wasn’t my intention at all. The last part of my post was meant to be honest discussion. At the very least, there are beers classified here (and by brewers) in the milk/sweet category that do not contain lactose. Double Chocolate just being one.

 

Probably one of the best-selling US "sweet stouts", Samuel Adams Cream Stout, also reportedly does not contain lactose, despite the "Cream" designation - based on numerous references on the 'net where people specifically asked BBC due to dietary, allergy or religious reasons. I supposed BBC would counter with "But cream ales didn't traditionally have lactose in them, either..."

Of course, since it is the internet, lots of other sites claim it does use lactose, based probably on its designation as a "sweet/milk stout" on so many sites .

Perplexing, BBC does not mention it either way on the label or on the beer's webpage (you'd think they'd get tired of answering the question...) and recently they've even changed the label to include a !@#$ cow in place of Sam himself. WTF?

The Kosher "star" (yellow arrow highlighted) on the current label supposedly also means there's no lactose.

 

That will not be true for everyone. Some people find lower ABV stouts to be too thin or milk stouts too sweet for their liking. This beer style is very broad, containing many sub-categories. The recommendations have also covered a wide range. What works for one will not work for another. Some will prefer the bolder, more robust flavors of imperial stouts from the beginning.