The first Thursday of November is the international stout day. As usual irrelevant ditties come up like,
Dingdong bell, pussy in the well, who put are in little Tommy Thin, who pulled her out little Tommy stout.
Somehow stout gives an impression of a person of substance. Out vulgar curiosity, I decided to check what the word actually means. My go to source of course is Merriam-Webster. So Merriam Webster says
A stout person is someone who is bold and brave. Firm and determined… which of course I am, but you on the other hand are uncompromising and the little boy down the lane is an obstinate mule. Stout is also physically or material strong, sturdy, vigorous, staunch and enduring. A stout construction is of course substantial. When something hits forcefully you’ve had a stout attack, and a storm is nothing but a stout wind. Of course then we have most popular one bulky in body FAT… or broad in proportion to length.
When Mokokoma Mokhonoana talks about obese spending significant amount of their energy on suppressing the urge to tell some of the people who are staring at them they do not eat as much and as frequently as they seem to… he could be talking about me.
But I stoutly deny that the international stout day is about stoutness… yet it is about stoutness got there right. Well the international stout day is about beers. Think about it like Frank Zappa puts it you cannot be real country unless you have a beer and an airline, you could have some kind of football team of if you are a common wealth country a cricket team maybe nuclear weapons can help but in the very least you need beer.
Stouts developed from porters in 1700s and became very popular in different nations. So 2011 stouts were given recognition with the advent of the international Stouts day. Stouts are strong, robust in flavour and is the perfect beer for sipping and savouring.
Stouts are made from unmalted roasted barley unlike the porters which are made from malted barley. The unmalted roasted barley gives the brew the coffee flavour. Porters debuted in London in the early 1720’s. Its strong flavour and the ability to stay fresh attracted lot of beer drinkers. It was also priced less, this made it a popular export to Ireland. By 1776 Arthur Guinness began brewing it at his St.James Gate Brewery, over the century the brew used black patent malt this make the flavour stronger and the colour black.
First stouts were produced in 1730, in 1800’s the Russian Imperial Stout was brewed by inspired brewers to win the Czar.
As early as 1677 the word stout was used to describe beer. The word initially meant proud or brave, eventually came to mean strong. Hence “stout beer ” was used as long as the beer was strong. It was later on that stout became synonymous with dark beer.
Currently Stouts have come up with many varieties including milk, oatmeal and even chocolate.
“Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!”
― Martin Luther
Parwatisingari's Weblog 