Brewers Association Adds Dessert or Pastry Stout Style

On May 23, 2023, the Brewers Association announced that “Dessert or Pastry Stout” had been added to its Beer Style Guidelines. The new description defined beers in the category as having a strong dark-beer base combined with culinary ingredients that create rich, sweet flavors resembling desserts, pastries, or candies. It was the first Brewers Association style description issued specifically for Dessert or Pastry Stout. The term “pastry stout” was already in circulation before its formal recognition. It is commonly credited to Alex Kidd, the beer blogger behind Don’t Drink Beer, who used it around 2017 as a cynical or pejorative description of intensely sweet, high-alcohol, adjunct-heavy imperial stouts. The expression was subsequently adopted more broadly by brewers and drinkers as a name for the developing style.