When the weather gets cold, I can’t help but turn to darker beers to warm up the chilly nights.  So I went down to the “beer cellar”, which is really just a closet in my basement that has a lock on the door, and pulled out a milk stout.  This one is from Lancaster Brewing Co. and it’s the first beer I’ve had from this brewery.  I would figure a brewery in Lancaster would make some reference to the Amish and they do in their Four Grain Pale Ale.  Their web site professes to “pay respect to the old traditions” in their brewing style. Let see how their Milk Stout holds up to scrutiny:

It pours almost black out of the bottle.  There is virtually no head and subsequently, no lacing.   I can pick up a slight coffee aroma as I wave the glass beneath my nose.  The first sip feels like a slightly flat Coke swirling around my mouth.  It has a strong coffee flavor with a bitter finish coming through loud and clear. 

This beer is not nearly as creamy as other milk stouts I have had.  Milk stouts get their sweetness from the lactose, or milk sugar, which is unfermentible by the yeast.  As a result, these stouts are much sweeter than your typical bitter stouts like Guinness.   Unfortunately, I didn’t taste the sugary, sweetness I was expecting and am not crazy about this beer.  The Lancaster is not terrible, it just pales in comparison to some others that I’ve tried like Left Hand’s Milk Stout.  Now there’s a creamy, satisfying stout.

Home brewed Chocolate Imperial Stout

I come from a family of beer lovers.   There are five boys and we all have a thing about beer.  Now the next generation is getting into the act.  My brother Brian was nice enough to document his thoughts and feelings about brewing his first successful batch of beer at home with his son.

My son Sean & I had an emotional Saturday afternoon filled with great joy.  We bottled our first home brew. 

The process started three Saturday's ago with the brewing of an Imperial Stout.  We agreed to add our own signature taste to the beer by turning it into a Chocolate Imperial Stout.  A fight quickly ensured in my mind because I now couldn't decide between turning our first home brew into a Chocolate Imperial Stout, a Dark Chocolate Imperial Stout,  a Belgium Chocolate Imperial Stout, a German Dark Chocolate Imperial Stout........I think you can see where this was going; NOWHERE.

Sean reached up, ripped me from the ceiling and reminded me of my guiding principle of life: K.I.S.S. = KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.  Our Beer making had begun.  The first fermentation process took a week followed by a two week second fermentation.  The picture shows the final bottling process and now A LONG AND PAINFUL 2 TO 4 WEEK WAITING PERIOD for the beer to carbonate.

PS - Sean & I have also had to incur the cost of adding additional security measures around the house.  My brothers have been attempting to break in a steal our LIQUID GOLD.