A decidedly American imperial stout with espresso

The coffee notes in Stone Americano Stout are bold, rich and full of American swagger. For each 120-barrel batch, we incorporated over 250 lbs. of artisanal espresso-roast beans into the mash and added in Columbus, Chinook, Amarillo and Cascade hops to invigorate the coffee taste with a slight citrus and resin hop presence. When it came time to selecting our coffee, we chose the same local roasters who contributed to our sought-after 2013 Stone ESPRESSO Imperial Russian Stout. Their fantastic beans helped us achieve this dark, hoppy and wonderfully aromatic espresso stout.

In 2013, as part of our “Odd Beers for Odd Years” program, we brewed our 2013 Stone ESPRESSO Imperial Russian Stout. We loved this beer so much that we wanted another way to brew something similar to it. This beer is first in a series of higher ABV seasonals that we will be brewing in 2016. We used Stone ESPRESSO IRS as an inspiration but took it in a slightly different direction. Ultimately, I was inspired by craft brewed stouts of the late 1980s and early ‘90s. To me, that meant using 100 percent American hops and American specialty malts. This a stout similar to one I would have brewed when I was first starting out as a brewer, so it was fun to take sort of a “throwback” approach. Espresso of course adds a wonderful complement to the coffee and cocoa flavors that are coming from the malts.