Brewery Blog

Stuart Stout

The name. The mountain. Mt Stuart is a massive mountain easily seen from the storied Enchantments, and from I90 ~13 miles SW from Leavenworth.  It’s the second tallest non-volcanic peak in WA and can be identified from nearly any high summit.  The mountain offers many types of climbs from a couple of approaches.  For example, the Cascadian couloir is a long, technically easy ascent on (blah) scree.

The West ridge is a (easy) technical route that is a lesson in high alpine route finding. And the N ridge is a great sustained mid class 5 multi-pitch rock climb.  All of these start in beautiful Headlight basin – worth the day trip in itself on a great trail.

We climbed Mt Stuart via the W ridge.  Fortunately we turned around on the first attempt as we would have run out of daylight and would have had to overnight high up on the mountain in rain with no gear.  Our return was more successful, but still made for a long day with the extra route finding high on the mountain.  Our decent down the scree-filled cascadian couloir made us glad we had done the more interesting W ridge.

The Beer. Since Mt Stuart is one of the most noticeable, bold, non-volcanic peaks in WA we tried to make the beer bearing its name similar.  We based this beer on last year’s recipe but reduced the munich malt and changed hop varietals (but the hops have the same characteristics).  This resulted in a slightly smoother, lower bodied beer while retaining the dark roastiness making Stuart Stout a rich, full bodied, deeply roasty interpretation of the style.  A fine beer to drink anytime, but best enjoyed in front of a fire on a cold rainy winter evening.

Malts: 2 row, roast, chocolate, crystal 40, wheat, and a smattering of oats.  Hops: Apollo for bitter, Fuggles for flavor.

Early Morning Stout

The Name. The mountain.  Early Morning Spire is set in a magical location of the Eldorado, Inspiration, and Mcallister glaciers. It is actually situated slightly off the glaciers in Marble cirque.  Early Morning Spire offers great rock climbing in a remote place, so remote that it is best to take 3-4 days to climb (the approach is via Eldorado – nearly summiting – over a col into the marble cirque). While it has great rock routes, Early Morning spire can be done as a scramble, although getting from the glacier to solid rock might be treacherous depending on conditions.  The name derives itself from a group that had to bivy near the summit (cold, unprepared), which caused them to summit just after first light. What better of a beer style to have at first light than a stout? We couldn’t think of one.

The Beer. Early Morning Stout was brewed with the “American stout” substyle in mind.  It has a nice roast and chocolate aroma/flavor but also includes a significant amount of hops that are typically associated with our region.  The resulting beer has a pronounced chocolaty roast flavor (slightly less than its counterpart Stuart) but also includes a nice hop aroma and flavor in the background.  A smoother mouthfeel than Stuart, Early Morning stout has great flavors and not just a dominant roast character like its mountainBeer counterpart.

Malts:  Pale, roast, chocolate, carapils, wheat.  Hops: Columbus, cascade, palisade. Yeast: American ale.

Porter vs Stout

As a prelude to “stout month” and our releasing Picket porter back in December we thought it would be fun to write a “discussion” between stouts and porters.  Rest assured, if you asked 100 different brewers and/or connoisseurs to write this you’d get a 100 different responses, so take it with a grain of salt.

Porter:

The ‘traditional’ style: We may never know exactly what the original porters may have tasted like (see below), but today we characterize them as lightish (body) beers with a nice note of chocolate and sometimes mild roast. Porters typically end dry and slightly acidic due to the light body with the acidic dark malts. Porters typically are anywhere from 4-5% ABV for brown porters and up to 6.5% for the robust varieties.  One of the other defining characteristics is that the color and roast character derives itself from “black malt” (malted barley that has been highly roasted).

Stout:

The ‘traditional’ style: Stouts typically have a strong roast/coffee flavor and low hop profile. Chocolate notes may be present but not always. Unlike many porters, stouts tend to have a full-body mouth feel.  Similar to porters, stouts can be of the 4-5 ABV range (dry stouts like Guinness), or up to 7% for some other sub-varieties.  Additionally, while porters get their roast character from black malt, stouts get their roasty notes from roasted barley: unmalted barley that has been highly kilned.

Today’s styles:

We feel that when comparing the styles, that the largest difference is in the body of the beer supporting the roast character, with stouts having a little more of each. A secondary, more subtle difference is the source of the roasty notes (black malt vs roast barley). However, in today’s day and age with craft beer booming, the commercial breweries have been pushing the envelope with these styles (like all other styles), packing in more flavor, more ABV, and more twists. Thankfully most breweries don’t adhere to the above guidelines and we are blessed with a huge selection. But additionally, we feel that all bets are off as to what “defining style” a given beer is (in terms of porter versus stout) and that functionally the styles are merging together, or at least the thin line that separates the styles is becoming very blurred.

Interested in the histories? …. 

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