I’ve been told that smoking in the dark is a rather shallow experience. Your brain is deprived of the sensory feedback it normally gets when you watch the smoke exit your mouth. Without this visual image, you’re really just huffing and puffing with your lips pursed. You get the buzz but not the satisfaction.

Not sure how true this is, but it’s a concept I fully understand. My kids have offered me “toy” candy in the past that is mis-colored and it was an equally disconcerting experience (cinnamon flavored jelly beans that were blue). It is along these lines of visual distortion that we explore today’s beer style. The “white stout” beer style is all about messin’ with your brain but in a much more enjoyable fashion.

A white stout is a style, when done correctly, that will convince you that it is indeed a deep dark stout when in fact it looks more like a pale ale or IPA. It’s color betrays its true flavor.

Unlike the off-colored candy, I find this to be fascinating and far from irritating. My first encounter with this was at a brewery in Indiana called Evil Czeck and a beer called “Bigsby” (6.7% ABV).

I ordered the beer when I was on a business trip. The food we had on the table was so overwhelmingly good (I ordered something called the “El Chapo”) that I ordered my white stout without much thought and absolutely no research from the beer menu provided. I was astounded when I took my first sip. The color was relatively pale but the body was thick, the flavor and finish mimicked a coffee-chocolate stout.

It takes some masterful work on the part of the brewer to add just the right amount of cocoa, vanilla, coffee to make the right flavor profile. Specialized malt is used to enhance the body to be similar in heft to that of a stout.

The end result is interesting as you perceive all the high notes from a stout with no bitter or harsh finish. Not sure I could drink more than one at a time but I do enjoy one of these beers every so often.

I’ve taken this beer to beer tastings and have found that even a well seasoned beer nerd is impressed when they try this beer. Their reaction reminds me a lot of what it was like for all of us when craft was new (or new to us). Craft beer was a nice surprise back then. It was a “discovery” that we wanted to share with others.

White stout is a style of beer that has re-awakened my enthusiasm for new beer “discoveries” and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

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