Glossary
Roasted barley
Unmalted barley roasted to a very dark colour, contributing the sharp, coffee-like dryness characteristic of Irish stout.
The full record
Roasted barley has its own catalogue entry with the detail this page summarises — causes, thresholds, related styles and evidence.
Roasted barley — Unmalted roasted grain giving the sharp, dry, coffee-like roast that defines Irish dry stout.
The distinction from chocolate and black malt is that roasted barley is never malted at all. It carries a drier, sharper, more acrid bitterness than roasted malts of similar colour, and it is the ingredient that most defines the difference between a dry stout and a porter.
Related
- Black malt — The malted equivalent at similar colour.
- Dry stout — The style built on it.
More vocabulary
Adjunct · Aroma hop · Base malt · Bittering hop · Black malt · Brettanomyces · Candi sugar · Chocolate malt · Crystal malt · Dextrin
See every term on the glossary index.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.