Low-alcohol beer usually arrives pale. Sketchbook Brewing Company's newest one does not.

Doodle Stout is pouring now in the Evanston and Skokie taprooms at 2.9 percent ABV. It is the latest addition to a low-ABV family that also includes the 2.4 percent Doodle Lager. The brewery describes rich chocolate malt and smooth coffee notes, and frames the beer as bold enough to satisfy while staying easy enough to order another. The newsletter lists it at 121 calories.

Dark beer is the harder half of the low-ABV project. Roast character and a body worth drinking generally come out of the same malt bill that supplies the alcohol, so a stout built to sit under 3 percent has to find its weight somewhere other than strength. Low-alcohol lagers have become common enough to fill a cooler door; low-alcohol stouts have not. Whether the balance lands is a question for the glass, but the attempt is the part worth noting.

The name sits inside a house style. Sketchbook also brews a dopplebock called Illustrator, and each week's newsletter closes with a coaster a customer has drawn on. The Doodle cans carry the line's pitch printed along the bottom edge: all the craft, half the consequences.

Doodle Stout is available on draft and in 12-ounce six-packs to go from both taprooms.

Editor’s Take

A brewery called Sketchbook that already makes a dopplebock named Illustrator, and closes every newsletter with a coaster one of its customers drew on, was always going to arrive at Doodle for the small stuff. A doodle is what you make when you are not committing to anything, which is a fair description of a 2.9 percent beer, and the cans say the quiet part out loud along the bottom edge: all the craft, half the consequences. Naming is usually the part breweries phone in. This one is joined up.

The more interesting move is that they did it with a stout. Low-alcohol lager is a solved problem at this point - there are whole shelves of it, and most of it is perfectly pleasant. Dark beer is where the difficulty lives, because roast is easy to get and body is not, and a thin stout gives itself away in the first mouthful. Chocolate malt and coffee at 2.9 percent is a more ambitious place to put a beer than the light lager most breweries would have reached for. Doodle by name, but somebody clearly sat down and drew it properly.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Doodle Stout Puts Chocolate Malt and Coffee at 2.9 Percent

Sketchbook's low-ABV Doodle line finally goes dark. Doodle Stout is pouring at 2.9 percent with chocolate malt and coffee notes that the brewery says arrive without the weight. On draft and in six-packs.

Source & Editorial