Cheers to enjoying an Irish dry stout

For most people, it’s famously known as Guinness. And it’s the beer of St. Patrick’s Day.

For brewers and beer aficionados, though, it’s the nitro draft version of what is otherwise known as Irish stout or Irish dry stout.

Usually jet black and nearly opaque, with reddish brown highlights and a thick and creamy tan head that persists over a session of sipping, Irish stout is certainly among the most elegant and comforting of beer styles.

The deep color and robust flavors come from roasted malts, which present notes of coffee, dark chocolate and smoke, along with a mild hop bitterness, and a clean, very dry finish. One more thing, it’s remarkably low in alcohol.

Those characteristics are amplified in other ways by the art and science of what Guinness calls the “perfect pint,” as publicans from Dublin to Tokyo take pride in a pouring ritual that delivers the visual “cascading effect” of beer and nitrogen dancing in the glass.

But nitrogen, which doesn’t go into solution like the carbon dioxide in a usual draft pour, has other pleasures, too, mainly in creating complexity, softening flavors, and producing a silky smooth mouth feel.

Though Irish stout has never been very popular among craft beer lovers, several U.S. craft breweries have made notable versions of the style over the years, including Bell’s, Brooklyn, Cigar City, Harpoon and North Coast.

The craft offering that’s surfaced most often in metro