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I put a stout on about a month ago, I used 1 Coopers stout, 1 Coopers Classic dark, 500gm malt to 23litres, It has only been in the bottle 3 weeks but I tried one last night, it is all bloody right too! beautiful head and head retention, a little bit bitter, but I like that, generally a pretty nice drop and I would suspect the bitterness may subside a little with age. Just thought I would mention it as a pretty easy brew that comes up well.

I made a similar one using the same 2 cans (I added choc malt and oats) a couple of months ago and the bitterness does subside. It's delicious now!!

I just bottled my first stout - it's an Irish dry stout sort-of-style, aiming for a lightish stout that tastes a bit like a Murphy's or Beamish. I named if after my great-great-grandfather who got jailed and transported from Marlow in county Cork for receiving a stolen sheep (hey, he was poor and hungry!) and probably didn't get to drink any more Irish stout after he ended up in Van Diemen's Land. I've only done mostly extract brews because they are easy and quick and I don't get much spare time to mess around too much with anything too complicated. I used some specialty grains in it to boost the flavour:

JD Convict Stout

1.7KG tin Coopers Irish Stout
1.5KG tin Coopers liquid dark malt extract
250G roast barley bagged and steeped in 8 L waterfor 30 mins at 55degC
washed through with topping up water
15G Kent Goldings hop pellets, bagged and boiled for 2 mins in 2 cups water, left in fermentor
Bulk primed with 70G dextrose for 1.6 vols carbonation
Brew cellar english ale yeast (15G)

Fermented for two weeks, a little on the high side due to stinking hot WA weather (wort around 24-26degC). Foamed a lot for about 2 days then settled down, mostly fermented out after about 5 days. OG 1044, FG 1016 after 14 days. Approx alcohol content around 3.9%, close enough to what I was after (around 4% like a Guiness).

It tasted pretty much like I wanted just prior to bottling, can't wait to mature it a couple of weeks and knock off the first few cold pints.

Sometimes they transported the sheep as well