I hate lactose

let's not forget bolero snort and their affinity for those sweet IPAs that I personally really don't like. Tired Hands and their Milkshake IPAs all have lactose in them too, right?

 

My favorite personal "lactose" story...

Back in the early '70s, before the "legalization" of homebrewing in the US, it was (contrary to the myth) relatively easy to buy ingredients in person and mail order, used to bring homebrew to BYOB's, etc. - most people never thought anything about the legality of it. Many of the available books on the topic, however, were imported from the UK and one had the learn a new language. Stuff like dustbins, dixies, screw-top bottles, etc. (Oh, and don't try harvesting the yeast from US draught beerlike the book said).

So, when making a milk stout I learned that I could just go down to my "chemist" (drug store) and buy some milk sugar. Went down the street to the little local Rexall pharmacy that still sold some generic dry products, like alum, in those little rectangular cardboard w/metal caps "tins".

A clerk asked if she could help me find something and I asked for "milk sugar". She disappeared and out came the pharmacist in his little white smock.

"Why are you looking for milk sugar."

Uh-oh - I never hid the fact that I was brewing at home despite it not being technically legal. Is this guy gonna turn me in or what? I mean, he only sells rubbing alcohol and cough syrup (most NJ drug stores don't have liquor licenses) - I'm not his competition.

I hesitated a bit and then made up some story like my Italian grandfather had an old wine recipe that called for it.

"Oh, OK", he said, "Most drug stores don't carry it anymore because it is used to cut heroin."

Phew, wrong illegal substance.

 

Ahh the good old days when heroin dealers and addicts would freely tell the local pharmacist what they were doing when asked... nothing like today's liar heroin addicts.

*rocks in his rocking chair*

 

You mean exclusively of the "milkshake" variety. Have not had a single New England IPA with lactose in it, though I am aware they exist.

 

Oh yeah I definitely know how that is. If you keep tasting a flavor you hate in beers then it's definitely going to be frustrating.

Maybe lactose is more prevalent in beer than I thought. I've only had it in milk stouts before. There are IPA's that are brewed with them but I've never had a chance to try one, though I'd certainly like to out of pure curiosity.

Didn't try the Sierra Nevada 12 pack unfortunately but that Raspberry Sundae sounds pretty gross. I can only imagine...

 

Don't be confused. What I'm saying is that for someone to say that it's lactose instead of, say, maltodextrin is not possible, because in a complex soup of flavors like beer, individual sugars do not stand out. Or maybe I'm wrong and you can taste the difference between maltose and maltotriose. Can you?

 

I'll throw you a like, OP.

I happen to enjoy them (speaking about the TH milkshakes and a sour that isnt coming to mind right now), but remember thinking "im not exactly in beer territory right now."

I could see that annoying some, as when its a trend, but to each his own. Like I said, I happened to enjoy the ones I've had.

 

I'm not a huge fan of lactose in IPA's, mostly because I find if I have a couple lactose, citrusy beers I get bad heartburn.

 

Not a fan either, I am particularly sensitive to sweet, it tastes bad to me.

 

OK. So you meant that Lactose doesn't taste any different. Not that lactose doesn't have any taste.

 

Kind of, sort of, but not really. I meant that if I put lactose in your beer and didn't tell you, there's little to no chance of you identifying it.

 

No, there are definitely non milkshake NEIPAs that use lactose. The milkshake ones (in my mind) are the ones that use other ingredients too like fruit, vanilla, whatever. I wouldn't call any NEIPA that uses lactose a "milkshake."

Also, Three Floyds made Apocalypse Cow, a decidedly Midwest IIPA with lactose, long, long before any of the NEIPA things began, and I would definitively say that it is not a milkshake.

 

I would blame The Bruery for that more than Sierra Nevada, and keep a wary eye on other big, dessert-like beers from The Bruery, they make a number of them.

 

Otherwise known as The Diabetes Brewing Company.

 

Haha! Maybe going into it with a different set of expectations will change one's perspective, but I didn't think it was all that bad in the end.

 

It’s one of the things in craft beer that bugs me. I’ve seen beers brewed with tree nuts that aren’t obviously advertised as such. At least the oyster stouts are self-explanatory towards their addition of shelf fish...

Steeping a bunch of peanuts in your nut brown ale may not seem like a big deal, but people can have serious, life-threatening reactions to stuff like that.

 

It kills me when I come across labels that go into a goddamned fairy tale about the beer but don't mention anything actually about the beer. Lost Abbey is one of the worst. Ale aged in barrels? No shit? That's cool some angels combed some dandruff off a unicorn and sprinkled it in the fermenters before the beer was transferred to barrels stored in a labrynth guarded by the minotaur, but what style of beer is it!??! $@!/

 

Except some Oyster Stouts don't contain shell fish - Marston's in the UK being one of the most notable.

Yard's Love Stout has gone back to using oysters after a period (before the ownership split) when they didn't add them.