One five gallon batch of beer... Five different products. This is the essence of The Stout Project 2011.
Dubbel Dachs will produce one 5 gallon batch of dry stout. Once primary fermentation is complete, the beer will be racked into five separate one gallon fermentors. Irish Dry will serve as the control batch. The other four parts will become coffee, vanilla, raspberry, and blueberry stouts. Pictures of the batches can be found here.
The beers will be bottled with similar labels and color-coded caps. There will be a few select horozontal tastings open to a limited number of special guests.
Let's start with the varieties:
Irish Dry Stout
Irish Dry Stout is the base style of all of the beers. This should be a black, opaque beer... full of roasty and chocolate notes. The finish should be dry and this low-alcohol (4.6% abv) beer should be very drinkable.
Coffee is the perfect compliment to the bitterness of the stout's roasted barley. Cold-pressing the coffee in a French press extrudes the flavors but leaves some of the harshness behind.
The acidity in darker fruits is also a perfect compliment to a deep dark stout. I have learned a lot since my first attempt at a raspberry stout... Hopefully I'll love this one instead.
Vanilla Stout
Chocolate and vanilla just go together... The smoothness of real Madagascar vanilla bean will temper the harshness of the stout's roast and the resulting beer should be mellow and refreshing... like a big-ass bowl of ice cream!
