Lancaster Milk Stout

Lancaster Brewing Co. - Lancaster, Pa.

Style: Milk stout

Serving temperature: 50˚F

Alcohol content: 5.3% abv

With nearly 100,000 cows grazing on the green fields of its Amish and Mennonite farmers, Lancaster County, Pa., is known more for milk than beer. In this verdant land, there are more than 1,800 family-owned dairy farms and a mere 4 breweries.

In a nod to that other favorite local beverage, Lancaster Brewing brews one of America's rare milk stouts.

Milk stout, of course, contains no actual milk. This dark, exceptionally rich ale is made with an addition of lactose - milk sugar - which is unfermentable by beer yeast. That gives the beer a lightly sweet flavor to complement the deeply roasted malt's compelling bitterness.

Made with two-row barley and exceptionally dark malts, Lancaster's version is smoother than Guinness, yet bursts with roasted barley dryness, with hints of chocolate and coffee.

An aggressively poured glass fills with the color of dark espresso coffee topped by tight froth. Bitter chocolate crosses the palate first, quickly followed by mellow coffee and sweet cream. A smooth creaminess in the finish is countered by a slight roasted malt bitterness.
Joe Sixpack