Make Your Best…

It’s one thing to follow a beer recipe, but it’s an entirely different beast to know the whys and hows and everything in-between for the type of beer you’re brewing.

Tropical Stout

The trick to a tropical stout is making a beer that is sweet (but not cloying), fruity (but without the kinds of by-products that rampedup esters tend to create), alcoholic (but not hot), and roasty (but not dry). This one takes some creativity if you want to minimize your risk and maximize your flavor! Here’s how.

Style: The tropical stout is one variation of the foreign extra stout, a bulked-up version of the standard stouts (this one is about double the ABV of my dry stout) that features a noticeable sweetness, prominent fruity flavors, and (of course) the dry, coffee-like flavors of roasted barley. Although originally a beer that was brewed by the likes of Guinness as a higher-abv version export beer (ostensibly to help it survive long journeys), local breweries in the Caribbean and elsewhere now make incredible versions of it for themselves.

Ingredients: To recap: we want sweet and sugary, roasty, and fruity. This recipe is rock-solid stable because we’re not messing with your process or introducing any atypical ingredients.

So, starting with the grist, you’ll want about 12 pounds (5.4 kg) of Maris Otter to get a nice bready base. Then, of course, you’ll want some roast: Add half a pound (227 g) each of roasted barley, chocolate malt (450L), and chocolate rye. The rye adds some spice: think rum cake. Add half a pound (227 g) each of the following (for the following reasons): ▪ Crystal 10 (light caramel sweetness) ▪ Crystal 80 (darker caramel and dark fruit) ▪ Crystal 120 (toffee, prune, raisin) ▪ Special B (plum, dark cherry)

Now, for hops. You want to balance the sweetness but still let it come through, so about 45 IBUS will do the trick. Get hold of some Citra and any other tropical fruit hops that you prefer. Blend them and add half an ounce (14 g) at 60 minutes, an ounce (28 g) at 10 minutes, and an ounce (28 g) at flame-out or in the whirlpool.

For yeast, use Wyeast 1007 (German Ale) and treat it as you always would, for the same reason: good attenuation, low fruity esters, and very few off-flavors.

Process: We’ve already covered our bases on sweetness, fruit, spice, caramel/sugars, and more in our recipe, so the process can proceed exactly as it always does. Mash at your usual temperature (the big dose of crystal malts will add plenty of body), boil as usual, chill as usual, and oxygenate as usual. Same process, different beer.

Fermentation will sound familiar, too. Start at about 65°F (18°C), hold there for the first 72 hours, and then start ramping up the temperature by 1°F (0.5°C) a day until you hit something in the 70–71°F (21°C) range. Give it plenty of time to wrap up (terminal gravity should be around 1.018, but don’t panic if it stops in the low-1.020s), and then cold-crash, package, and carbonate to about two volumes of CO2.