Unfortunately I had to skip the North Shore Brewers third quarter of 2024 in-club competition. They style for Q3 was kolsch and I was excited to brew one. It’s a style that is unforgiving subtle and I’ve never had luck brewing one. I designed a new recipe from the ground up that I was excited about. Then I let it sit in a carboy for seven weeks, and the batch was infected.
Thankfully the style for the fourth quarter was one I was quite familiar with: sweet stout. This is the first style I brewed repeatedly until I perfected a house recipe. The process taught me after three years of brewing that less is more. It’s a lesson most brewers need to learn when making their own recipes. Completely does not come from just adding more “stuff” to a recipe. Every ingredient in a recipe needs to be intentional. A brewer needs to know exactly why any ingredient in a recipe is in a recipe.
By the time I perfected my sweet stout recipe I was bored of the style and never brewed it again, save for a re-brew of a pumpkin spice variant a couple of years ago. This was the perfect time to revisit Curly’s Milk Stout.
I dialed in the recipe before I worked for Muntons. At the time the recipe used 100% Briess base and specialty malt. My recent batch of Pumpkin Milk Stout used base malt from Maine Malt House and Muntons specialty malt. Checking my notes from that batch, swapping out Briess Chocolate Malt for the much darker Muntons Chocolate Malt made the beer more roasty than I was going for.
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| Kegging day, sunlight not ideal. |
For this batch I went back to a base of Briess Brewers Malt. While my supply of Muntons base malts are almost all gone two years after being laid off, I still have a ton of specialty malts. To match the color of of Briess Chocolate Malt, I used a 50/50 blend of Muntons Chocolate and Light Chocolate. Other specialty malts include a healthy dose of 40L Crystal Malt, and just enough Roasted Barley to make the beer taste more like a stout than a dark porter.
I really wanted to do a commercial side-by-side after brewing this beer. I wanted to see how a recipe I felt like I perfected stood up. The most prominent commercial example is Left Hand Milk Stout. On tap and in shops you almost always see the Milk Stout Nitro; a nitrogenated version that instructs drinkers to pour hard to achieve a similar cascading effect as a nitro beer on tap. To do a real side-by-side I wanted to find an example without nitro. I gave passing thought to driving 90 minutes and back to Stone Cow to pick up their Cows out Milk Stout. Then, I luckily found the regular, non-nitro Left Hand Milk stout at Kappy’s in Peabody.
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| Curly's Milk Stout (L), Left Hand (R) |
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| Curly's Milk Stout (L), Left Hand (R) |
Appearance
Curly’s: Black with copper highlights when held under light, otherwise opaque. Thin tan head fades quickly
Left Hand: Black and opaque. Darker when held under light. Thin tan head with better retention.
Aroma:
Curly’s: Rich chocolate and brown toast. Very inviting!
Left Hand: More coffee and roast. Maybe a hint of hops.
Flavor:
Curly’s: Lots of chocolate notes, like a chocolate truffle. A hint of roast. Hop bitterness is sufficient, very low hop flavor- earthy. Fermentation clean overall, slightly floral.
Left Hand: More roasty - like a Starbucks dark roast but less intense, hint of smoke. Med-low floral and citrusy hop flavor. Neutral fermentation. Finish nice and crisp.
Mouthfeel:
Curly’s: Full bodied with medium carb, just enough to tingle. Finish slightly sweet, but enough roast and hop bitterness.
Left Hand: Med-full body gives more carbonic bite in comparison. Finishes dryer and roastier.
Overall:
According to the BJCP “Dark roasted grain/malt impression with coffee and/or chocolate flavors dominate the palate” and “The balance between dark grains/malts and sweetness can vary, from quite sweet to moderately dry and somewhat roasty.”
Both beers fit the style. Curly’s with far more chocolate flavor and a finish that is slightly sweet, Left Hand with more coffee and a slightly roasty finish. The Left Hand might be slightly more complex with hop character that is more evident with its slightly lighter body. I enjoy the malt flavor in Curly’s more overall. Maybe if I lightened the body slightly that would help?
I do think blending the Muntons Light Chocolate and Chocolate Malt to more closely match Briess Chocolate helped here. I could go all English Light Chocolate Malt and increase the amount of Roasted Barley to match the color and see what that does. As it is, I think it’s good to leave it as it.
At the club meeting my beer finished second out of eight beers. I lost to the club’s two-time defending Brewer of the Year. I can live with that.
The voting is very informal. There are no detailed score sheets. Attendees taste all of the beers at the meeting and simply vote on which one they like the best.
To organize my thoughts I write a one-sentence review and rate the beer on a scale of 1-10. Out of the eight beers, I couldn’t pick mine out. Here’s what I wrote at the meeting about the milk stout I spent months perfecting:
“Chocolate flavor, full bodied, very creamy, slightly fruity. Not bad - 5.5”
I have no idea why those comments equaled a 5.5. It was the seventh beer, maybe my palate was fatigued, but the eighth and final beer was the one I voted for. Looking over my notes again it looks like I rated the beers that were less sweet a little more highly. On the night I was looking for beers that gave me a little of everything.
I’m not going to read into it too much. I still really enjoy the beer as it is, and stand by my thoughts from the side-by-side with Left Hand. Maybe it could be more complex, but enjoyed by the pint Curly's Milk Stout is as enjoyable as ever.
More than anything I am happy this style was pulled out of the jar and it gave me the impetus to brew this beer again.
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Recipe: Curly's Milk Stout Brewer: Jason Chalifour Style: Sweet Stout TYPE: All Grain Recipe Specifications -------------------------- Boil Size: 6.35 gal Post Boil Volume: 5.68 gal Batch Size (fermenter): 5.25 gal Bottling Volume: 5.26 gal Estimated OG: 1.060 SG Estimated Color: 37.4 SRM Estimated IBU: 32.0 IBUs Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 % Est Mash Efficiency: 83.0 % Boil Time: 60 Minutes Ingredients: ------------ Amt Name Type # %/IBU Volume 8.10 gal Black Full (Over 31 SRM) Water 1 - - 3.54 g Chalk (Mash) Water Agent 2 - - 2.47 g Baking Soda (Mash) Water Agent 3 - - 2.43 g Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash) Water Agent 4 - - 8 lbs 8.0 oz Brewers Malt 2-Row (Briess) (2.1 SRM) Grain 5 79.1 % 0.66 gal 1 lbs Crystal 110 (40L) (Muntons) (55.8 SRM) Grain 6 9.3 % 0.08 gal 8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (Muntons) (520.3 SRM) Grain 7 4.7 % 0.04 gal 8.0 oz Light Chocolate (Muntons) (208.1 SRM) Grain 8 4.7 % 0.04 gal 4.0 oz Roasted Barley (Muntons) (634.5 SRM) Grain 9 2.3 % 0.02 gal 1.50 oz Fuggle, U.S. [4.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 23.7 IBUs - 0.25 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 11 - - 1.00 oz Fuggle, U.S. [4.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 12 8.2 IBUs - 1.0 pkg Liberty Bell (Mangrove Jack's #M36) Yeast 13 - - Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 10 lbs 12.0 oz ---------------------------- Name Description Step Temperat Step Time Mash In Add 3.46 gal of water at 163.3 F 152.0 F 60 min Sparge: Fly sparge with 4.28 gal water at 168.0 F
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