Style Focus - Tropical Stouts

By Scott Nieradka

I wont pretend to be an expert on tropical stout, but I want to have a conversation about the style, which the classic examples are delicious, unique, and worth seeking out. And it is one of the most misunderstood and abused styles in the BJCP guidelines, and really one of the most poorly written, and terse, of the BJCP guidelines, which is doubly tragic as its a style that the reference examples are incredibly hard to find on the west coast, and the most likely our judges are going to need to rely on the guidelines heavily.

I've had a few over the years. Lion is fantastic from Sri Lanka. Dragon is solid from Jamaica/red stripe. Royal from Trinidad when i was in the west indies. I've had examples from Cambodia and Singapore (ABC Stout) . Mostly these don't taste like what i've gotten labeled from craft breweries or homebrewers entering tropical stouts at competitions.

History:

As soon as you start to talk about 1700-1800s English beer history , you are assaulted with a lot of half truths and confusion. I'd refer you to Ron Pattison, but he wrote nothing I can find about tropical stout. Basically as I understand it, tropical stout now exists mainly in former British colonies in hot climates.1700s porter, and later what we would call for foreign extra stout were exported en masse to the colonies for the British garrisons and elites. By around 1880 some local porter breweries popped up in the colonies, and started selling porter directly to the locals and lower classes. After ww2, and with decolonization and independence, alot of these breweries focused on lager, as it was well suited for the climate, the late 1800s saw alot of german migration, and refrigeration was now possible; so adapted their stout offerings to the local climate and local tastes.

What are they like:

By the numbers these are 7-8% stouts. Nearly pitch black. FG between 1.010-1.018. 30-50 IBU.

Sensorarily these are fruitier stouts, and not so much in esters but in dark fruit character. They are smooth, velvety, with a lighter chocolate and mocha roast, without harsh character. Generally pretty clean. Often bottle conditioned with a fine tight creamy tan foam. Light in body and easy drinking with its 8% alcohol hidden.

They should be smooth and chocolatey with no ashy, burnt or harsh roast notes. With a bitter sweet finish. Often lighter bodied than you’d expect for an 8% stout. Honestly closer to a baltic porter with more roast character.

Often people describe them as sweet but a 1.012 fg is similar to most 5% lagers. And 1.018 isn't out of line for a 6-7% bock. And 30 ibu is higher than these beers. As is its abv. So it's not sweet in an absolute sense. There's a perception of sweetness cause these often have a large percentage of darker caramel malts, and have a molasses or brunt sugar note.

Misconceptions and the BJCP Guidelines:

IMHO, this is one of the worst descriptions in the guidelines. Gordon was smoking something before writing these. Is it wrong? Not strictly, but really easily misinterpreted if you've never had one before.

First of all again, this is a well attenuated beer. 80% on average, right in line with most german lagers. Which makes sense as these are lager beers made by macros who mostly make yellow lager. The guidelines talk alot about sweetness, but its more the perception of fruitiness, and sweet in balance compared to say, an irish dry stout, which is well attenuated. 1.032 og beer and 40-50ibu. Not sweet in an objective sense. More like a bock beer or a marzen in that its malt forward. And lots of dark crystal can give a aroma that's plummy and rummy.

“Similar to a sweet stout, but with more gravity. Tastes like a scaled-up sweet stout with higher fruitiness.” There is no lactose in these beers to my knowledge. What is true is that these have a mocha like roast. And more crystal malt character. The roast is similar to a sweet stout, especially compared to the Foreign extra stout, in character. But people misread this all the time and make imperial milk stouts.

They indicate medium-low diacetyl is ok. I don't ever remember diacetyl in any example Ive had. Even fresh-ish in the caribbean. Maybe there's one of them which is a butter bomb, like Pilsner Urquell is for the czech beers. But I honestly, and I could be wrong, don’t think this is characteristic of the style. I watched a bunch of people drinking these beers on youtube, since i couldn't find any this week to jog my memory, none mentioned butter.

Read between the lines, medium high carbonation, smooth mouthfeel, attenuation, these are lager beers, made by lager breweries, not really english in style anymore, except for the roast malts.

What we know on how to brew them:

Information is scant, most of these breweries don't have helpful webpages, and there's not alot in the journals I could find with a quick search. There's some anecdotal evidence here and there which ill sum up, but take everything I say with a grain of salt, its my best guess.

Malt. Base malt traditionally fairly clean, pils, or neutral pale ale malt. Wouldn't go marris otter here. Most likely they have pils or two row available. Most contain a lot of dark crystal. And a lower, more mocha like roast. The foam is always dark tan, not white like a guinness. So black and chocolate malts, but i may consider replacing a portion with debittered malts.

Adjuncts. Most contain a bit of sugar or corn. Unclear what type, but with the high attenuations, not lactose. Likely corn syrup or dark invert syrups. Dark sugar syrups would increase characteristic flavors, so I suspect they may be used. Most of these are produced in rum producing areas so sugar cane products would be easily/cheaply available.

Mashing. These are macro lager breweries, so they are going to mash like one. 5.5 mash ph, and a split alpha and beta rests for attenuation. Probably more complicated on their scales, but i would start with a hochkurz style mash, something like 147(40)-160(30)-168(15).

Hops. Most are using extract and only at bittering. 30-50 ibu.

Fermentation. Definitely in most cases I see, lager yeast. Some say fermented warm, and i see a dubious mention of Dragon stout fermenting at 70. That said, these are macro breweries and they are in 20m tanks where the hydrostatic pressure alone is probably 2bar. And pressure reduces esters. So if you ferment warm with lager yeast at 70 in a carboy, you are very likely to have a different result than they would. So my instinct would be to ferment colder if you cant do a pressure fermentation. And that's one example. Others may be colder, or not. Not all lager yeasts ferment warmer without getting nasty. 34/70 is known to tolerate both pressure and warm fermentations, and is also the most popular yeast in one of its forms, for these international macro breweries, so would likely be a solid choice. If that's not an option, I'd go for the cleanest ale yeast you can find. Probably us-05 in the low 60s.

Conditioning. Surprisingly, most examples are bottle conditioned and unfiltered. They have the characteristic whipped cream tight lingering foam of naturally carbonated lager beers.

Conclusion:

I hope you all have a chance to try these fresh. If you are ever on vacation in the post british colonial tropics, make a point of hitting the local market or stalls where beer is sold and see if you cant find an example. They are surprisingly lovely beers when you can get them, and one of the rarest examples stateside (Jim is going to try to grab some in Florida for the meeting)

And while you are all homebrewers and arent bound to do what macros half around the world do, and i cant stop you from throwing coconut are something else in it, I mean you do you. But Id hope you take a minute to try to understand one of the most misunderstood styles. And while this style has both british and german influences, it is the only style described in the guidelines (besides the very vague catch all international lager) that originated outside europe for the local market. This is a strange beer that arose from the post colonial context and is a melting pot of influences. Similar to alot of food from these regions that are a curious mix of taking what they liked from former occupiers and adapting to local tastes, like the banh mi I had for lunch today at work. Enjoy it for what it is. It is an unexpectedly delicious style. And it is good to make it, as its hard to find one at your local bottleshop.