Photo by Stephen Hamilton Inc.
Known for its strikingly dark appearance, stout beer has a fairly successful relationship with whisky. Both work well served side by side—especially to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, when it’s all but expected to pair your favorite Irish whiskey with a creamy pint of Guinness. Other drinkers even mix the two together, for popular concoctions like Irish Car Bombs. But some whisky makers have taken things to the next level, using stout cask finishes to elevate their expressions.
Stout casks are quite popular with distillers who specialize in single malts. Part of the reason for that lies in the fact that both drinks are made from barley, and thus have complementary flavor profiles—rife with dark chocolate, coffee beans, espresso, fudge, and roasted coffee. That combination is perhaps best seen in Lagavulin Offerman Edition: Guinness Cask Finish, a 95-point beauty from Islay that was named our 2021 Whisky of the Year. It was finished for 4 months in Guinness stout casks, resulting in a veritable masterpiece that melded Lagavulin’s trademark smokiness with notes of citrus, white chocolate, coffee, and honeyed vanilla from the casks.
American single malt pioneer Virginia Distillery Co. (VDC) has been in the stout cask game for almost a decade, having first utilized them nine years ago as part of a cask exchange with neighboring Three Notch’d Brewing Co. VDC has used plenty of other beer barrels over the years—including wee heavy scotch ale and English ale. But stout casks stand out as a particular favorite for lead blender Amanda Beckwith, who contends that the casks have a fuller body and heftier profile that better fits VDC’s whiskey.
Why Are Stout Casks Ideal for Finishing Whiskey?
Beckwith says part of the fun is the flavor variation found in these barrels, which typically include earthy coffee and chocolate notes like Tootsie Roll and Ovaltine. Flavored stouts, like the ones used in VDC’s high-scoring collaboration with Hardywood Park Craft Brewery, can also impart non-standard flavors like candied ginger. She goes for the barrels that she thinks will naturally fit with VDC’s flavor profile, and tends to keep the finishes on the shorter side—preferring 3–5 months, compared to some of VDC’s other finishes which can last a year or two. She also prefers to work with VDC stocks aged in bourbon barrels, which soften the single malt’s profile with barrel spice notes.
Westward Whiskey, based in the brewing mecca of Portland, Oregon, offers a stout cask-finished single malt as part of its core range. It uses an array of barrels from as many as 40 local breweries. The decision to use stout casks was a natural progression for lead blender Miles Munroe, whose background was originally in brewing. “We’re taking two favorite things and putting them together,” he jokes, adding that stout casks are a great gateway dram for beer drinkers getting into whiskey.
The Westward team regularly samples these local brews in search of the ones that will best complement the distillery’s flavor profile. The desired flavors include bitter chocolate, roasted coffee, vanilla, and rose. Munroe notes that since the bulk of the Portland stout brewers are only using one or two yeast strains, the flavor variation isn’t all that wide, which helps the distillery maintain flavor consistency from batch to batch. The average finishing time is 12–14 months.
“We’re taking two favorite things and putting them together.” —Miles Munroe
Bardstown Bourbon Co. is a leader in stout cask-finished bourbons. The distillery’s popular Collaborative Series has seen a few bourbons finished in stout casks from Goose Island, Founders, and most recently Blackberry Farm. The Goose Island collaboration was notably impressive: a treasure trove of chocolate and espresso flavors that earned a 93-point rating from our tasting panel.
Dan Calloway, who leads Bardstown’s blending and finishing efforts, assembles each expression by first adding a small amount of stout into his pilot blends before they enter the secondary cask, to get a sense of exactly what flavors will be brought out during finishing. He typically works with older whiskey (6–14 years), and prefers finishes of 1 year or longer. Calloway also likes to use casks that s till have some residual stout left in them, which he says helps proof the bourbon as it finishes for a smoother profile.
6 Stout Cask Finished Whiskies to Try Now
95 points - Lagavulin Offerman Edition: Guinness Cask Finish Scotch Single Malt, 46%, $80
White chocolate, peat, and baked oranges
93 points - Bardstown Bourbon Co. Collaborative Series Goose Island Bourbon, 50%, $160
Vanilla bean ice cream, chocolate fudge, and brownie batter
93 points - Virginia Distillery Co. The Brewer's Coalition Hardywood Gingerbread Stout Cask Finished American Single Malt, 50%, $50
Cinnamon, vanilla frosting, and berries
92 points - The Whistler Imperial Stout Cask Finished (Batch 2) Irish Blend, 43%, $40
Mocha, sweet vanilla, and gentle spices
90 points - Westward Stout Cask Finished American Single Malt, 45%, $80
Tropical fruits, milk chocolate, and coffee ice cream
Not Rated - West Cork Stout Cask Matured Irish Blend, 40%, $45
Bourbon barrel aged and finished in stout casks
