Barrel aged/pastry stout adjuncts

Voted peppers and coffee... love some kick in my stout

 

I only picked one... coconut. Although, if cinnamon had been a choice, I'd have definitely picked that, too.

Coffee and chocolate are both very fine but I'm always more impressed when the brewer manages to express those flavors without actually using them. I suppose these days you could get coconut using sabro but I don't expect that would hold up much past a year.

Also, I just get fatigued by coffee stouts - entire months go by when every single stout on the shelf is a coffee stout. Or a coffee stout masquerading as a coffee porter.

 

Which, vomit or donut?

 

Could have gone with 5 (Peppers, Dark Chocolate, Maple Syrup) but settled on Coffee & Cocoa Nibs. raspberrry is good too, if luscious.

 

Only because I forgot.

I will admit to being partial to Michigan blueberries and Montmorency cherries. Does that make you feel any better?

 

I chose coffee and peanut butter because I feel like just about every beer I had with peanut butter in it actually tasted like peanut butter, and coffee is always good for me as long as it doesn't have that vegetal green bell pepper taste. I do enjoy all of the options though when done right.

 

I voted for cocoa nibs and coffee. The only one that really don't like is coconut. I've never had Oreos in a beer and likely will not. I've never had a peanut butter in a stout. I had it in a porter (I know, not much different) and it was fine but a little artificial tasting.

Side note: Hazel's Nuts is one of my favorite barrel aged and flavored stouts.

 

Cocoa nibs and coffee for me, with coffee far and way being the top choice. Next tier would be hazelnut, maple(in moderation), and dark chocolate. A couple people have mentioned cherry, that seems to be very hit and miss when it comes to stouts. Cherry stouts can be done very right, but also very wrong.

 

The only one on this list that I would ever want in a stout is coffee.

 

I do not have much experience as regards the flavoring of vanilla but I have had a number of stouts that used coffee as a flavoring and they have been hit or miss: sometimes I pick up an acrid aspect from the coffee and this would constitute a miss for me.

There are a number of variables when it comes to using coffee as a flavoring: variety of coffee, roast level, format of coffee (e.g., whole beans vs....), how much coffee is added for flavoring, when is the coffee added to the brew,...

Cheers!

 

Nah, the flavor is hard to nail, but doesn't ferment out. If flavors fermented out how would beers ever taste malty?

 

It's like comparing black patent to chocolate malt. Some coffee is more "smooth" than others.

 

Flavor (malty as you describe it) doesn’t ferment out, sweetness does. Taste a wort prefermentation it tastes like sugar watery and bitter grain.

So I’m just going off that, the distinct sweetness of maple wouldn’t be there if it got fermented out cause said sugars got consumed. Just like the sweetness of the wort disappears. That’s the basis for my guess...

 

I knew coffee would win without even looking, though I will never understand the hype behind them.

Vanilla is #1 for me. I struggled deciding between dark chocolate or peppers for #2, but realistically most pepper-spiced stouts also have chocolate added, so kind of a moot argument...

 

I get where you're coming from, however adjuncts like honey, invert sugars, Belgian candy sugars etc all leave a very distinct flavor profile behind post fermentation. Even plain sugar leaves behind it's own flavor profile. They may not be sweet, but they do leave their calling card. Maple has a very distinct flavor as well both pre and post fermentation. Some breweries use a back sweetening process with maple to retain the sweetness.

 

Like this one:

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/22564/430129/

I don’t taste the bacon and it’s actually pretty good.

 

Coffee and dark chocolate are the obvious choices for me and harder for the brewer to overdo than some of the other choices.

Vanilla and maple syrup work for me as long as they don’t overwhelm the final product.

I would love to see more stouts with peppers in them (think Chili chocolate).

I haven’t really cared for any of the coconut beers I’ve tried and peanut butter doesn’t interest me in the slightest.