In craft beer, you’ll typically find fruit flavors in bright styles like Sour Ales and IPAs — but what’s out there for fruit lovers who want a taste of the Stout dark side?
According to the Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines, there are seven types of Stouts, and none of them include fruit by definition. That doesn’t mean breweries haven’t been making fruited Stouts; Bell’s Brewery created their Cherry Stout way back in 1988!
Since then, a few breweries have made a fruited Stout here and there, but over the past two years, fruited Dark Beer is on the rise thanks to the Pastry Stout boom.
If you like to dabble in the dark side of brews, here are 8 Deviously Delicious Fruited Stouts to help open your eyes to the chocolate fondue of craft beer:
Energy City Brewing - Bâtisserie Blueberry & Maple Syrup Slurry
It tastes just like homemade blueberry pancakes, without the sticky mess!
The brewers pack Bâtisserie Blueberry Maple Syrup Slurry Stout with loads of drippy blueberries and nectarous maple syrup, until it swells with bold breakfast flavors. Succulent surges of vivacious berries balance against waves of rich maple. A Slurry Stout is a hybrid of a Pastry Stout and a Slushy Sour, but just like the two sub-genres, Slurry Stout is not an official style either — yet!
Other Half Brewing - Deep Orbit Centaurus
Copious amounts of dark malts, plus additions of vanilla, almonds, cinnamon, and figs give this 16.3% ABV, dark decadence its rich chocolate, dark fruit, and baking spice flavors. The brew’s fanatical sippers compare it to delicacies like “chocolate cake batter with almond and cinnamon” and “a brownie with nuts… that will get you drunk!”
Pelican Brewing - Berried at Sea
This dark brew deserves to be on the cover of the Best of Oregon magazine: Stout Edition. It features the sweet and tangy fruit the state is best known for (blackberries). The brewery injects them into one of the most highly decorated Stouts (6 GABF medals!) in the entire beer-crazy state.
Berried at Sea pours a purple-tinged black with a vibrant violet head. As you sip, you’ll inhale trade winds of chocolate malts and subtle dark fruits. It tastes like blackberry bonbon guests arrive from a patisserie to entertain the taste buds. The finish is roasty with a cacao-like dryness that doesn’t let you forget that what you’re drinking, is in fact, an Imperial Stout.
903 Brewers - Slushy Stout with Pomegranate, Raspberry, and Blackberry
Yep, you read that right: this addition to 903 Brewers’ celebrated Slushy series is a Stout! Some of the lucky few to try it say it tastes like a raspberry tootsie roll, and that’s pretty accurate. The brewers craft this Slushy Stout with real pomegranates, raspberries, and blackberries for flavors of chocolate-coated fruit with just a bit of tartness.
The brewery exceeded fans’ expectations, which is crazy because they were SKY HIGH for this beer. Partly because it’s from the U.S. Open Beer Championship Gold Medalists at Texas’ 903, but mostly because it takes the beloved Slushy series and totally flips it upside down with choco-tastic malts!
Great Divide Brewing - Chocolate Cherry Yeti
Fans adore Great Divide’s Yeti for its divinely raw, unprocessed, straight-from-the-pod chocolate complexities.
For the Chocolate Cherry variant, the brewery dunked a ton of real cherries into a mass amount of cacao nibs to balance its palate-pleasing bittersweetness. Notes of vanilla bean combine with the cacao to create the decadent aromas and flavors of fudgy cherry cordials.
Rare Scooop is a Neapolitan ice cream-flavored Imperial Milk Stout, rounded out with oaky molasses notes from aging in Bourbon Barrels. Fans who’ve managed to score sips are raving it’s a “creamy mix that lingers perfectly” and is “just a beautiful, rich flavor combination.”
To make it, the brewers add strawberries, chocolate, and vanilla — just like if they were making actual Neapolitan ice cream!
4 Hands Brewing - Absence of Light Peanut Butter + Jelly Milk Stout Raspberry
The brewers use hefty additions of chocolate malts and real peanut butter to impart big notes of cocoa, espresso, and a rich nuttiness. Then, they top it all off with a dose of real raspberry, lending a slightly tart, fruity character that cuts through the bold, thick, decadent flavors.
Every ounce drips in layers of PB&J goodness just like mom used to make… except this bottle comes loaded with a grown-ups-only 7.5% ABV!
Main and Mill Brewing - Lil' Jifforia - Fat Elvis
Each sip of this cacao nib, lactose, peanut butter — and banana(!) — loaded Pastry Stout has tasters singing out in delighted glee. It tastes like chocolate-covered bananas and Reese’s peanut butter cups.
You could toss all these ingredients in a blender, and it probably still wouldn’t sip down as dreamily as this Stout. It goes down like a nutty mocha mousse topped with sweet banana slices!
Enjoy these eight dessert-worthy brews and taste the complexities that fruit can add to a Stout!
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