Brewing Gnaughty Gnome English Coffee Stout

Last weekend, in an extended celebration of #StoutDay, the SheppyBrew Gnomes and I brewed a coffee stout.

Sort of.

We brewed a Stout. I took a sample today. It is a good dry(ish) stout. It does not really taste like we went above and beyond on the coffee, though.

Mostly, that is because we didn't. We did not add any coffee to this "coffee stout".

Personally, I like coffee stouts once and awhile. Read that to mean that I don't want to drink a whole 5 gallon keg (minus what I give away) of something that goes too overboard on extra coffee in a stout.

#StoutDay & #GnomesLikeBeer

As I am sure you know, today is International Stout Day.

Yes it is.

The first Thursday in November always is. It is not as popular as #IPADay, but .... well ... you know.

As a Beer Geek, I was aware of  #StoutDay, and planned ahead. I got myself some Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro. You may remember that in my Colorado 6 pack, I included this beer. Both the Nitro version and the non-Nitro version are delicious. The reason I picked the this beer for my #StoutDay beer was that untappd had another badge specific to the Nitro version "Pour Hard".

#StoutDay 2012

Here it is International #StoutDay again.

I was going to go out and grab a half-growler of some local small brewery's stout today, but things just got too busy at work and I decided to just head home after. I do, after all, have beers at home.

I was able to earn the 2012 untappd Stout Day badge tonight with my world-famous Stouticus American Stout.

Happy #StoutDay

So, here it is International #StoutDay. I hope you are having a good one. I'm hoping my sister can forgive me for saying this: "Happy #StoutDay!".

To be honest, Stouts are one of those styles that it took me getting into brewing to really appreciate. I would try one from time to time ... mostly as part of sample platters in brew-pubs, but would hardly ever get myself a pint. I never purchased stouts from liquor stores.

But, SheppyBrew has brewed a few Stouts, and I'm really beginning to seek them out more. And the more I drink, the more I like them.

I think most non-beer-geeks (at least here in America) think Guinness when they think Stout. But, "Stout" is a pretty wide range of beers, many of which are really unlike Guinness. Personally, I've never really been a big fan of Guinness. I still think the lack of carbonation make them taste too flat. I prefer more carbonation than the nitrogen smoothness I guess. I would say that I'm much more a fan of American Stouts than other types.

#StoutDay Week

This week on Thursday is International #StoutDay.

What is International #StoutDay? I'm not sure I really know. The best way to describe it is #IPADay only instead of celebrating boring old IPA's, we are celebrating the rich and diverse style of Stouts.

I realize that if you don't know about #IPADay, my description doesn't make much sense. If you are a twitter tweeter and a beer geek, you know about #IPADay. If you are not, you don't really care and won't care about #StoutDay either. At least I don't think so.

#StoutDay is November 3rd

Hmmm... remember I told you about the social media "International #IPADay" on this blog (August 4th)? Apparently, the powers that be decided that it was such a huge success that they would go ahead and follow it up with International #StoutDay on November 3rd. I'm not sure how they defined success, but I suspect it has to do with the number of #IPADay hash tags you could see on twitter that day (http://twitter.com/#!/search/%23ipaday).