T Milk Stout

oday’s craft beer drinkers are used to seeing obscure ingredients on their beer labels. There’s POG, Syrah grape must, habanero, you name it. It’s enough to make you wonder where the line is between beer and beer-like product. But brewers have been putting non-traditional ingredients into beer for more than a century. Case in point: milk stout.

What is Milk Stout?

Milk stouts are dark, thick ales with very low carbonation. In general, they have notes of sweetened coffee, espresso, and chocolate. Milk stouts aren’t cloyingly sweet like candy, but have a subtle sweetness reminiscent of whole milk (as the name suggests).

Do Milk Stouts Have Milk in Them?

Don’t go and replace your morning glass of milk with a milk stout. The beer has the sweetness of milk without all the good stuff. But that wasn’t always believed to be the case.

When milk stouts were first mass produced in England in the early 1900s, they were marketed as healthy and “a tonic for invalids and nursing mothers.” At the time, aged, or “stale,” beers were losing popularity, and fresh, or “mild,” beers were on the up and up. What is young always turns old and stale, however, and the fresh, sweet taste of mild beers dies unless a fountain of youth elixir comes in as a savior. Enter lactose, the sugar found in milk.

Milk Stout is a beer with a luxuriant, full mouthfeel and a sweet finish.