AHS Christmas Milk Stout (13B) - ALL GRAIN

The brewing went good. Added a few extra ingredients. Added brown sugar when I added the spices. Added honey at flame out. Fermented very wild. Had to put on my blow off tube. As of now it’s in the secondary with cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans. Can’t wait until it’s ready to drink.

I make a 10 gallon batch of this every year for xmas and it is always a big hit. This is a good recipe to thicken up with malto dextrin. One year I also added 2 lbs of honey per 5 gallon carboy in secondary fermentation and the result is very good and very boozy, but this needs to be started around May to be ready by xmas.

Just started drinking. This is my first time all grain brewing very satisfied with the out come very enjoyable beer.

I have found no one who has tasted this recipe and found this beer to be anything but great. Added the extra sugar to boost alcohol content and even now after 9 months every glass is great.

The first and most prevalent note is that the recipe calls for way to much holiday spices, such that it overwhelms the flavor profile. I would at least cut the amount in half, if not more, and may add some cocoa nibs. Not sure why, but it didn't quite reach the target final gravity, resulting in more of a brown ale than what I'd call a stout. I think the lack of overall body masked the smoothing affect of the lactose addition. I'm going to let it age a bit and hope that the overwhelming spice notes mellow out a little.