Mary MacLeod (Devil’s Mother) ’18

My annual imperial milk stout has come to fruition! Here’s the results:

The nose has some of the milk qualities-and this beer has a fine, sustainable head on it that keeps providing some scent long after the pour.

There isn’t much milk in the flavor though, so I definitely  needed to add a second pound of lactic sugars to this one.

There is, however, a decent viscosity to this beer; it’s dense but not oily, rich without being too heavy. It clears off the palate nicely, leaving a strong but not sharp flavor of coffee behind.

That’s a plus; the beer not being as sharp as last year’s. I credit my buddy Jeremy for recommending Karafa malt instead of Black Patent. It’s helped improve the beer by dialing down the bitter quality. Anything that helps a beer with this alcohol volume and these kind of robust flavors needs a little nudge in the drinkability column.

And this one definitely is drinkable. There’s a harsher element, a hard coffee flavor, that isn’t tempered by any sweetness and I believe it’s this flavor that lingers. It doesn’t spoil the beer in any way, though, it just makes that initial fluffy sweetness work out better.

Brew date: 9/9/18

Steeping malts
2 lb Chocolate
.5 lb Carafe 3
5 lb Maris Otter
2 lb Opal 44
1 lb Golden Promise
2 oz cocoa nibs

Fermentables: 7 lb LME

Other: 1 lb Lactose

Hops: 1 oz Nugget @ 60

Yeast: Imperial Barbarian 4th use (d’oh! I really try to only use yeast three times, in order to keep the flavor profile stable)

OG: 1.10

FG: 1.022

Bottled 10/22

ABV: 10.6%