New Stout II

Classification: stout, foreign-style stout, all-grain

Source: David Brockington (daveb@alpha.rollanet.org), submitted 06/12/95

This is the beer which earned First Place in the Stout category at the 1993 National Homebrew Competition. This batch is the result of a several-year quest to replicate Sphinx Stout from Hart Brewing Co. of Kalama, WA. It was not influenced by the classic stouts which define the "foreign-style" or Export substyle (e.g. Guinness Export, or Tropical Guinness) but rather the stouts of the Pacific Northwest in the United States. Several of these stouts seem to share a common theme -- a heavy reliance on bitter, roasty notes to define the character of the beer. Sphinx Stout used to have these qualities, although it seems to have been toned down in the last couple of years. Now, I would say that Pike Place's Stout is one of the better examples of this "style". Over the course of several batches, I incrementially added more and more roasted barley to the grain bill until it reached the three pound figure presently in the recipe. When this beer won at the NHC, I decided that three pounds was enough.

Ingredients:

9# Munton & Fison English Pale malted barley
3# roasted barley (unmalted)
1/2# English Crystal malt(40L)
1/2# Black Patent malt
2 oz East Kent Goldings hops (60 minutes)
2 tsp. Irish Moss (@30 minute mark)
Wyeast 1084 (Irish Ale)

Procedure:

Mash in a single infusion at 155F for 60 minutes. The hops were, and always are, whole flower. This batch did not use a starter for the yeast, although I highly recommend using a one-pint starter for ales. My system is somewhat inefficient, so your extraction may be higher than my reported gravities. As I generally realize 26 points/pound, you should adjust the grain bill accordingly.

Judges generally embraced this beer (although a couple were turned off by the large amount of roasted barley), but that has not prevented me from tweaking around the edges. While the above recipe served me throughout 1993, in 1994 I incorporated several suggestions from better judging sheets, resulting in New Stout III, which has remained unchanged since.

Specifics:

O.G.: 1.060
F.G.: 1.016

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