Style Details

Name
For­eign Extra Stout
Cate­go­ry
Dark Bri­tish Beer
BJCP Style Code
16 D
Appearance
Very deep brown to black in color. Cla­ri­ty usual­ly obscu­red by deep color (if not opaque, should be clear). Lar­ge tan to brown head with good retention.
Aro­ma
Mode­ra­te to high roas­ted grain aro­mas, often with cof­fee, cho­co­la­te and/or light­ly burnt notes. Low to medi­um frui­tin­ess. May have a sweet aro­ma, or molas­ses, lico­ri­ce, dried fruit, and/or vinous aro­ma­tics. Stron­ger ver­si­ons can have a subt­le, clean aro­ma of alco­hol. Hop aro­ma modera­te­ly low to none, can be ear­thy, her­bal or flo­ral. Diace­tyl low to none.
Fla­vour
Mode­ra­te to high roas­ted grain and malt fla­vor with a cof­fee, cho­co­la­te, or light­ly burnt grain cha­rac­ter, alt­hough wit­hout a sharp bite. Modera­te­ly dry. Low to medi­um esters. Medi­um to high bit­ter­ness. Mode­ra­te to no hop fla­vor, can be ear­thy, her­bal, or flo­ral. Diace­tyl medi­um-low to none.
Mouth­feel
Medi­um-full to full body, often with a smooth, some­ti­mes cre­a­my cha­rac­ter. May give a warm­ing (but never hot) impres­si­on from alco­hol pre­sence. Mode­ra­te to modera­te­ly-high carbonation.
Over­all Impression
A very dark, modera­te­ly strong, fair­ly dry, stout with pro­mi­nent roast flavors.
Typi­cal Ingredients
Pale and dark roas­ted malts and grains, his­to­ri­cal­ly also could have used brown and amber malts. Hops most­ly for bit­ter­ness, typi­cal­ly Eng­lish varie­ties. May use adjuncts and sugar to boost gravity.
Histo­ry
Stron­ger stouts bre­wed for the export mar­ket today, but with a histo­ry stret­ching back to the 18th and 19th cen­tu­ries when they were more hea­vi­ly-hop­ped ver­si­ons of stron­ger export stouts. Guin­ness For­eign Extra Stout (ori­gi­nal­ly, West India Por­ter, later For­eign Extra Dou­ble Stout) was first bre­wed in 1801 accor­ding to Guin­ness with “extra hops to give it a distinc­ti­ve tas­te and a lon­ger shelf life in hot wea­ther, this is bre­wed [today] in Afri­ca, Asia and the Carib­be­an. It [curr­ent­ly] makes up 40% of all the Guin­ness bre­wed around the world.” 
Comm­ents
Also known as For­eign Stout, Export Stout, For­eign Export Stout. His­to­ric ver­si­ons (befo­re WWI, at least) had the same OG as dome­stic Extra Stouts, but had a hig­her ABV becau­se it had a long secon­da­ry with Brett­anomy­ces che­wing away at it. The dif­fe­rence bet­ween dome­stic and for­eign ver­si­ons were the hop­ping and length of maturation. 
Com­mer­cial Examples
Coo­pers Best Extra Stout, Guin­ness For­eign Extra Stout, The Ker­nel Export Stout, Rid­ge­way For­eign Export Stout, Sou­thwark Old Stout
Ori­gi­nal Gravity
1.056 - 1.075 SG
Final Gra­vi­ty
1.010 - 1.018 SG
Color
30 - 40 SRM
Alco­hol
6.0 - 8.0 %vol
Bit­ter­ness
50 - 70 IBU