Morning Session Stout

Main & Mill Brewing Co.

This is the session version of our bottle-release Imperial Breakfast Stout. With a generous mash addition of oats and post-fermentation additions of espresso, chocolate, cinnamon, maple and vanilla, we aim for a stout with the flavor and mouthfeel of something 8–9 percent ABV but at a responsible 4.5 percent ABV.

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters) Brewhouse efficiency: 76% OG: 1.060 FG: 1.025 IBUS: 12 ABV: 4.5%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

5 lb (2.3 kg) Maris Otter 2 lb (907 g) flaked oats 1 lb (454 g) Crisp Pale Chocolate malt 8 oz (227 g) Simpsons DRC malt 8 oz (227 g) Gambrinus Honey Malt 8 oz (227 g) Simpsons Brown (Coffee) Malt 8 oz (227 g) Briess Midnight Wheat

HOPS AND ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Golding [5% AA] at 60 minutes 0.5 oz (14 g) East Kent Golding [5% AA] at 10 minutes 1–2 oz (28–57 g) locally roasted espresso, coarsely ground and steeped 12–48 hours 2 cinnamon sticks 1–2 oz (28–57 g) cacao nibs 1–2 oz (28–57 g) maple syrup 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

YEAST

Fermentis Safale S-04 English Ale Yeast

DIRECTIONS Mash the grains at 160°F (71°C) for 45 minutes. Vorlauf until your runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. We typically fire up the kettle as soon as we start running off with our stouts to get some extra caramelization. Sparge the grains and top up as necessary to obtain 6 gallons (23 l) of wort—or more, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 120 minutes following the hops schedule.

After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 65°F (18°C). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast.

Ferment at 68°F (20°C) until fermentation is complete.

Post fermentation, add the steeped espresso, cinnamon sticks, cacao nibs, maple syrup, and vanilla beans. We do each addition individually, taste often, and pull when they’re just right. Allow a few days for all of the additions to marry and settle. It should be said that all of these additions are much easier to do in a keg than in secondary.

BREWER’S NOTES

This stout is one of our favorites. It gives the impression of drinking an iced latte. We get a lot of mouthfeel from flaked oats and a high mash. When we’re working with coffee, we like to dial down the IBUS and amp up the caramel malt to play off that bitterness. We like the main focus of the blend to be the base beer, the espresso, cacao nibs, and the cinnamon. We add the maple syrup after crashing for a bit of sweetness (it might be fun to prime bottles with, too). The maple sweetness and vanilla smooth out the edges and bring the other flavors together. ance. You’ll see saison, IPA, Berliner weisse, and a blonde ale called Clyde’s Ale, which is a 4 percent ABV, 6 IBUS, easy-drinking ale named after Clyde Foster, “my grandpa and an instrumental part in our renovation and opening, making it a perfect fit for our flagship ale.”

“Diversity in our tap list is really important,” Denny Foster says. “We can’t ever forget the people who helped us get off the ground and still come in every day.”

But it’s the pastry stouts that have brought him the most attention and one of the reasons the brewery is getting ready to open a big expansion just two blocks away. Foster is matter of fact when talking about the dark, viscous ales.

“To us, it’s about balance rather than super sweetness,” he says. “We’re not adding tons of lactose to our stouts because we don’t want them to be sugar bombs.”

It comes down to the grain bill and adjusting accordingly so that the final result still has all the hallmarks of the style and a “smooth, velvety mouthfeel.”

Foster is always adjusting when he brews a new stout. If, for example, they are brewing with coffee, he’ll change the grain bill, dialing back black-patent malts and kicking up the caramel malts because he knows the final beer will have the roast flavor imparted from the java.

“We think about what we want the end result to be first and then work backward,” Foster says. “If it were just one base imperial stout recipe where we added stuff afterwards, these would be different beers, and I’m not sure we’d like them. So we