As in the aroma, coffee bitterness permeates the flavor and masks dry stout's true personality - one of contradictions. It starts sweet, yet finishes slightly bitter, builds a hoppy bite, but yields no hop flavor, fades to a smoothness in mid-taste, and then with a small burst of refreshing sour tartness abruptly concludes. Finally, with its soul bared and all secrets exposed it surprises you once again, for dry stout can rightly lay claim to king of the light beers. It packs a lean 12 calories per ounce and a restrained alcohol content measuring less than 4 percent. Perhaps one of its four offspring.
Foreign stout represents the first member of stout's extended family.
As the name implies, it was brewed to ship beyond Ireland's shores. Although foreign stout retained the undiminished qualities of the original, it further emphasized elements that naturally preserve beer. To that end brewers fortified it with additional malt. To ensure balance they matched the malt with a higher hopping rate, and it too extended the beer's life. However, raising the amount of malt inevitably led to a fuller body and production of 'fruity' esters, which were subdued in dry stout but blossomed in the foreign version.