Irish stout is the perfect dark beer for warm weather. It’s full-flavored, low in alcohol, and has about the same number of calories as that watery “lite beer” your brother-in-law brings to your backyard barbecue. And speaking of grilled meat, Irish stout is a great pairing.
If you’ve spent any time on the Emerald Isle, you know that the black stuff is the year-round staff of life, equally at home in summer as in winter. Served at a cool—not cold—45°F (7°C) with low carbonation (nitro is de rigueur for most commercial examples), the style is both flavorful and immensely drinkable. It was a session beer before the term became trendy.
Irish stout is also incredibly easy to brew. With just three grains, one hops, and a nicely attenuative dry yeast, you can turn this around in a couple of weeks if you keg your beer. My interpretation is just a touch stronger, and I dare say more flavorful, than the world’s most famous stout, and it doesn’t spend several weeks on a boat.
A very wise man named Albert Einstein is often quoted as having said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Brew this Irish stout, and I promise you’ll feel a lot smarter.
O’Davey Stout
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (5.25 gallons before packaging)
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBUs: 43
ABV: 4.4%
MALT/GRAIN BILL
6 lb (2.7 kg) pale malt
2 lb (0.9 kg) flaked barley
1 lb (0.5 kg) roasted barley
HOPS SCHEDULE
2 oz (57 g) Willamette [6% AA] at 60 minutes
DIRECTIONS
Mash for 60 minutes at 152°F (66°C). Boil for 60 minutes following the hops schedule. Ferment 10 days at 64°F (18°C), keg or bottle, and enjoy!
YEAST
Danstar Nottingham dry yeast