Seafood stout

Seafood paired with a stout seems perfectly reasonable to most beer drinkers. Seafood in a stout, however, seems a bit strange.

However, such a thing as an oyster stout exists. According to beer historian Michael Jackson, ground up oyster shells were included in some stouts in the 1920s and 30s. The idea of making a stout with oysters in it came from the long-time popularity of British and Irish dockworkers pairing their post-work beer with a bucket of the cheap shellfish.

Many breweries today in the United States and in the United Kingdom make oyster stouts, but few actually include oyster shells in the brewing process.

The only definitive oyster-including brewery concoction I could find was Bushy's Oyster Stout (based out of Isle of Man, U.K.)


Apparently Yards Brewing Company in Philadelphia used to make an oyster stout. Unfortunately, the name was changed to Yards Love Stout and oysters are now longer used in the brewing process.