A Dark Turn: The New World of Stouts | Imbibe Magazine

During craft beer’s 2010s heyday, breweries created objects of dark desire by redoubling stouts’ ABVs, adding cocoa nibs and coconut to evoke liquefied candy bars, and aging the roasty beers in bourbon barrels. Creative extravagances led fans to line up and buy (and later trade) rationed allotments and attend festivals headlined by imperial stouts served by the indulgent ounce. Can you fill that glass with peanut butter cup stout? And then maybe some stout that tastes like Count Chocula?

Limits do surround nostalgic decadence. “As an industry, we swung too far on some pastry stouts,” says Todd Ahsmann, the president of Goose Island Beer, speaking of the dessert-stout trend. And the ubiquity of barrel-aged beers didn’t always correlate to excellence, a problem when a 500-milliliter bottle or bigger might cost more than $20. “Not to throw anyone under the bus, but some barrel-aged stouts weren’t doing anyone any favors,” Ahsmann says.

Now stouts are undergoing a dark turn as breweries right-size production and dial back sweetness, as well as turn cultish releases into stress-free buys at grocery stores. ABVs and package sizes are shrinking to encourage customers to drink stouts and not cellar them, while other breweries are broadening reach by aligning barrel-aged stouts with subcultures. New Holland Brewing now partners with game company Hasbro, makers of Dungeons & Dragons, on barrel-aged Dragon’s Milk stout variants tied to the board game. There’s no better time to drink stouts than while hanging with friends for hours. “It opened our brand to the entire world of tabletop gamers,” says Jake Maddux, beer brand manager for the Holland, Michigan brewery.

For Imbibe, I took a deep dive into all things stout.