FIVE TOP AMERICAN CRAFT STOUTS IN THREE CATEGORIES—SESSIONABLE, MID-RANGE, AND IMPERIAL—(BY ABV) (+7 PORTERS) THAT YOU MUST DRINK BEFORE YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH ME ABOUT DARK BEER.

Port Brewing A.B.L.E. Stout, Ocean Beach.

Sadly, it does not travel beyond San Diego.

In addition to producing an array of beers brewed with staggering quality, the American craft beer revolution has endorsed a sense of “the local” as well, with competent beers appearing in the tasting rooms or articulated pubs of great micro-breweries across the country—in cities large and towns small. Some of these beers are world-beaters, to be sure, but not all of them travel in bottle or keg outside the locality. When compiling a list of top examples, therefore, one must consider the brews that others can reasonably locate at their tap-houses or beer stores. Below follows just such a list. You can probably tell that I am partial to dark beer, having tasted, conservatively, upwards of 1,000 stouts and porters in the past few years. I have swilled all over the country, from Boston to Chattanooga, from Chicago to San Diego, from Washington, D.C. to Seattle, Washington, sampling, along the way, many stouts and porters unavailable nationally. Some of these local dark beers have been special, including, let’s say, Port Brewing Company’s A.B.L.E. Stout in Ocean Beach, an American double at 8.20% that may not be brewed again, and will never travel. The A.B.L.E. stout reminded me of Founders Breakfast Stout, a major beer that is available in most areas. The Founders beer and all other stouts do offer nutritive benefits (antioxidants, to name one) when consumed in moderation. The key thing, when sampling such a fine beverage, is to effect moderation. But I digress. Let me get to the list, which I have broken into three divisions, according to alcohol by volume, or ABV. The first category I will deem “Sessionable Stout”, with ABV not to exceed 6.50%. I will name the second category “Mid-Range Stout”, with ABV between 6.51% and 8.99%, and the third category “Imperial Stout”—for ABV values that soar above 9.00%. You can thank Catherine the Great (love that gal!) for imperials, as she commissioned the production of the very first one, a stout that would endure the snowy journey from England to Mother Russia without freezing en route. This list (“Warning!”) may be controversial to some. For one, I have organized it primarily by alcohol content, not necessarily by style. I have also determined my own ABV divisions. The list, moreover, does not include stouts and porters from abroad, not even from Mother Canada. The list does not attempt to establish these beers as the ultimate tops in their categories, but as “five of the tops”, even though these beers may be the very five tops after all. Click here if you need any instruction on how to imbibe a dark brew. Otherwise: to the pub! Comments welcome!  

Five Top Sessionable Stouts (up to 6.5% ABV.)

Sierra Nevada Stout 5.8%

Deschutes Obsidian Stout 6.4%

Wolavers Oatmeal Stout 5.9%

Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout 5.7%

Sixpoint Diesel 6.3%

Five Top Middle-Range Stouts (6.51% to 8.99% ABV.)

Founders Breakfast Stout 8.3%

Evolution Rise Up Stout 6.8%

Bar Harbor Cadillac Mountain Dry Irish Stout 6.7%

Green Flash Double Stout 8.8%

Big Bear Black Stout 8.1%

Five Top Imperial Stouts (9.00% ABV and above.)

Founders Imperial Stout 10.5%

Alesmith Speedway Stout 12.0%

Deschutes The Abyss 11.0%

Stone Russian Imperial Stout 10.5%

North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout 9.0%

Porters (any ABV.)

Deschutes Black Butte Porter 5.2

Mayflower Porter 5.5%

Russian River Porter 6.1%

Founders Porter 6.5%

Anchor Porter 5.6%

Smuttynose Robust Porter 6.2%

Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter 5.8%