Milk/Sweet Stout: how do we feel about giants?

no way in hell a Russian Imperial Stout would ever end up in that category

 

Ommegang put out a large Double BA milk stout over the winter. It packs a big punch of 13% but I think it still falls in the milk stout and not imperial stout camp to my taste and feel.


Enjoy

 

I tend to like my milk stouts in the 6%-8% range because the flavors tend to stand out more boldly with elevated ABVs.. Tree House has a number of exceptional milk stouts and, honestly, no one else comes close to them on this style.

That said, I agree with you in so much that there needs to be an upper limit. For me, anything 8%+ is no longer a legit milk stout, but rather an imperial stout.

 

I'm not so sure that the abv should be the decision maker when categorizing any style. Those numbers are only a guide, and were probably arbitrary when style guidelines were written. The ingredients are what count.

 

I had a similar problem entering a new beer. It's an Italian Pilsner, but the only category I could find that it fit into is German Pilsner. So that's where I put it, because that's the closest category that the site makes available.

100 times out of 100 if I was entering an Imperial Milk Stout into this database, I'd enter it into the Milk Stout category before I'd enter it into a Russian Imperial Stout category. I'd also not put it into the Imperial American Stout category because IMO, those are the non-lactose sweet stouts that make up the majority of the pastry stout division.

 

I recently did the same with an Italian Pilsner, but my assignment to the German Pilsner category was changed to Euro Pale Lager, which is okay with me. The mods must have some helpful guidelines that they use when reviewing borderline new submissions.

 

It's an interesting conundrum. A lot of the typical beer style guidelines were created some time ago. Brewers have had plenty of time to say "what if we made a really strong version of this?" or "what if we added XXX to this?" We don't want 5000 beer styles, but you don't want to baffle customers, either. I'm a fan of having large catch-all styles kinda like American Strong Ale is/was. Big bucket styles where you can toss things that don't belong elsewhere. Buckets for pastry beers (of all sorts), new-style lagers, etc. The beer's label can handle the specific details on what's involved, but style-wise it can go into the large bucket.

 

Not sure I agree. Are the ingredients all that different between a regular IPA and its imperial cousin? Or is it essentially just more of everything (plus slightly less water and slightly more alcohol)? The debate over milk stouts is a bit different because it does relate to ingredients, but for many styles that have regular/imperial variations I think ABV might be one of the determining factors, if not the most important one.

 

When those style guidelines were written, they had a specific type of beer in mind (go figure... that's usually the best way to approach it ), but styles change over time and many beers sold as "milk stout" in craft beer culture today do not fit that old description. When was the last time you saw a 3% ABV "milk stout?" You've probably seen a milk stout with vanilla much more recently.

As a (very) general rule, IMO it's usually best to classify a beer according to how it's marketed. If it's sold as an "imperial stout" then put it there, and if it's sold as a "milk stout" then put it there. This is a beer's public identity after all. The most reviewed imperial strength stout in the BA milk stout category is Southern Tier Creme Brulee. In this case, the brewer markets the beer as an "imperial stout" rather than a milk stout.

But what about all the beers marketed as "imperial milk stout?" Obviously beers can overlap multiple categories. In this instance, I think it's best to put such beers in the milk stout category. It's easy to see a beer's ABV in a BeerAdvocate list, but unless a beer has "milk" in its name, seeing a beer's ingredients (such as lactose) would require that information to be in the notes field (and it's much more difficult for a user to see such info if it's even there). In other words, it's a lot easier to recognize the imperial stouts in the milk stout category than the milk stouts in the imperial stout category.

In my opinion, the bigger issue is the practice of putting beers without lactose in the BeerAdvocate milk stout category... and unlike the ABV issue, the lactose issue is basically never recognized. The BA category claims that "sweet stout" is also known as "milk stout" but the two categories are not totally synonymous. In addition, the word "cream" in a beer name does not usually signal the presence of lactose. Of the 6 most reviewed "sweet/milk" stouts on BA, only half of them are actually milk stouts. (I am defining a milk stout as a stout with milk sugar.) The effect of this is that BA users erroneously think that all of these "sweet stouts" or "cream stouts" have lactose.

So basically - for the most user friendly experience, I'm of the opinion that the best path is to keep the beers sold as "imperial milk stouts" in the milk stout category... but remove the non-lactose stouts from the category... and change the style category to "milk stout" (removing sweet) along with updating the style description to recognize the style evolution (10% vanilla milk stouts, etc.). That's really not as bad as it sounds.

But heck, if I really had my way, I'd create a "confectionery stout" category (I know it would really have to be called "pastry" though ) and I'd move every stout emulating a dessert there.

 

Whenever I add what the brewer calls a double or imperial milk stout to the database, I classify it as an American imperial stout. Since there is no category specifically for it, and since there is no clear ABV dividing line, I really don't know what else to do with it. (Untappd has a "Stout - Imperial/Double Milk" category, but is it really necessary to go that route?)

 

I have no 'answer' here but it seems that perhaps depending upon which feature you think is a 'driving function' will influence which decision you make.

Is the presence of lactose more important? Or is the strength (ABV) of the beer more important?

Cheers!