Stout is a style of dark beer made using roasted malts or roast barley. There are a number of variations including sweet stout, dry stout, and Imperial stout.

Types of Stout

Stouts can be classed into two main categories, sweet and bitter, and there are several kinds of each.

• Dry or Irish Stout: Irish stout or dry stout is very dark in colour and it often has a "toast" or coffee-like taste. The most famous example, Guinness, is from Ireland. Its alcoholic content and "dry" flavour are both characterized as light, although it varies from country to country.
• Imperial Stout: Imperial stout, also known as "Russian Imperial Stout" or "Imperial Russian Stout," is a strong dark beer or stout that was originally brewed by Barclays brewery in London, England for export to the court of the Tsar of Russia. It has a high alcohol content (nine or ten percent is not uncommon) intended to preserve it during long trips and to provide a more bracing drink against cold climates. The colour is very dark, almost always opaque black. Imperial stout exhibits enormously powerful malt flavours, hints of dark fruits, and is often quite rich, resembling a chocolate dessert.
• Milk Stout: Milk stout (also called sweet stout or cream stout) is a stout containing lactose, a sugar derived from milk. Because lactose is unfermentable by Saccharomyces cerevisiae, it adds sweetness, body, and calories to the finished beer. Contemporary labelling standards prevent the use of the term in the UK. The classic example of sweet stout is Mackeson's XXX.
• Oatmeal Stout: Oatmeal stout is a stout with a proportion of oats, normally a maximum of 5%, added during the brewing process.
• Chocolate Stout: Chocolate stout is a name brewers sometimes give to certain stouts. The name "Chocolate stout" is usually given because the beers have a noticeable dark chocolate flavour through the use of darker, more aromatic malt; particularly chocolate malt - a malt that has been roasted or kilned until it acquires a chocolate colour. Sometimes, as with Young's Double Chocolate Stout, and Rogue Ales' Chocolate Stout the beers are also brewed with a small amount of real chocolate.
• Coffee Stout: Dark roasted malts, such as black patent malt (the darkest roast), can lend a bitter coffee flavour to dark beer. Some brewers like to emphasize the coffee flavour and add ground coffee.
• Oyster Stout: Oysters have had a long association with stout. The first known use of oysters as part of the brewing process of stout was in 1928 in New Zealand. Several British brewers used oysters in stouts during the "nourishing stout" and "milk stout" period just after the second world war. Modern oyster stouts may be made with a handful of oysters in the barrel or just use the name with the implication that the beer would be suitable for drinking with oysters.