Sweet or Milk Stout

ABV 4.0-6.0% · IBU 20-40 · SRM 30-40 · Serve 45-50F · Glass Tulip pint · Dairy contains lactose

Identify

Very dark brown to black, and usually clear rather than murky if you can see through the edge. A creamy tan to brown head that holds. The beer looks thick before you taste it, and unlike most dark beers, this time it really is. Sweet coffee arrives first, then something like cream. The body is full and slightly syrupy, and it coats your tongue. The finish stays sweet instead of clearing, so your next mouthful starts where the last one stopped.

Place

England, early 1900s. Mackeson brewed the best known example from 1907 and sold it as a tonic for invalids and nursing mothers.

Cause

Normal brewing sugar disappears. Yeast eats it, turns it into alcohol and carbon dioxide, and leaves the beer drier than it started. Brewers call how far that goes attenuation, which just means how much of the sugar the yeast got through. Lactose breaks that rule.

Confused with

Irish Stout, which is the same colour and finishes dry. Oatmeal Stout, which is creamy from oats rather than sweet from added sugar. English Porter, which is browner and softer. Pastry Stout, which is the same trick pushed much further.

Numbers

A Sweet Stout is a dark beer with lactose in it. Lactose is the sugar found in milk, and brewing yeast has no way of breaking it apart. Whatever the brewer puts in stays in, as sweetness and as weight. That one decision explains the beer. It also explains the three names on the shelf.

Will you like it and Try

Coffee with sugar and milk in it. This is the closest match in the whole course, and the official guidelines describe the style as suggesting sweetened espresso. Milk chocolate, or dark chocolate at the gentler end around 50%. Iced coffee drinks, or anything from a coffee shop with syrup in it. Sweet things after dinner.

Order and Pair

Ask whether it has lactose in it before anything else, if dairy is a problem for you or for anyone at the table. Milk Stout, Cream Stout and Sweet Stout all normally do. Consider a half pour. This is a sweet beer with a full body, and half is often the right amount rather than a smaller version of the right amount.

Judge, Myth and Remember

The sweetness is balanced by roast rather than left on its own. You should taste coffee and cocoa alongside the sugar, not sugar with a dark colour. The body is full and smooth without being sticky. Full is the target. Syrupy is a miss. The finish stays sweet but does not turn cloying, which means you still want the next mouthful.