For those of you that somehow venture into our kitchen (situated at the way back of our brewery), you will see that we painted the wall above the sink with one of our mottos, which is ‘Brew what you love! Love what you brew!’. Annette and I are proud to say that for the past 2.5+ years that we have been selling beer, we have never released a beer that we haven’t really, really liked. Of course we each have our favorites that we really LOVE the best (Campfire for me, Dippity Do for Annette.) But we always do our best to put forth amazing, high quality beer that all of you will love.
So when it came to making the Salted Caramel Stout -the latest beer in the Unafraid of the Dark Series, we did what we always do, which is put our heart and soul into the beer, trying to craft something unique and special. Well, tonight I finally got to try the finished product, and I have to say, I am super proud of Annette and team. I LOVE it. In fact, I couldn’t stop drinking it, which is why this post might be a tad longer and less mellifluous than my normal posts 😉 . But it is not just me – our whole team, in fact, is thrilled with the way this beer came out – super smooth, just a bit sweet and salty – perfectly balanced and harmonious.
How did we make this beer? Well, we started with a nice milk stout base. A milk stout is made using lactose, which is an un-fermentable sugar that keeps some residual sweetness in the beer. Once the beer was in the secondary, we added sea salt from Maine, plus salted caramel that Annette whipped up.
Local salt. Would you expect anything different? 🙂
(Intentionally) Burnt salted caramel made by Head Brewer Annette. If you look closely, you can see the beautiful salt crystals on the caramel. Yummy!!
Here are some other tasting notes:
– Temperature advice – We know most folks like to take beer out of the fridge and drink it right away, but, I gotta tell you, the flavor & aroma of this beer are greatly enhanced when the beer warms up a bit. So maybe 10 to 15 minutes before you want to drink the beer, take it out of the fridge. Pour it into a glass if you like. But, trust us, just wait to drink it. You will be rewarded with a much more caramel aroma and flavor.
– Appearance: The black beer has a beautiful, caramel colored head with big bubbles, which dissipates fairly quickly.
Perhaps this makes us beer nerds, but we think this head is very pretty!
-Aroma : When the beer is very cold, you get a hint of caramel in the nose. As the beer warms up, the caramel comes out a lot more.
– Taste & mouthfeel: This beer is so so smooth. I think a lot of the smooth, medium weight body can be attributed to the milk stout base. It really tastes like chocolate salted caramel to us! Like all of our beers (well, except for maybe Spicy Bohemian in the Summer), this beer is very balanced, so you won’t be overwhelmed by either sweet or salt. In fact, the salt is very subtle, but it adds a nice balance to the sweet. There is a roasty lingering at the finish.
–Pairing: We are sure this beer pairs well with many things, but we only had time to try it with the Sea Salt Tahana caramels that were lying around the office. Oh my – what a treat!
–Stats – ABV on this one is 6.6%
The Salted Caramel Stout will be available starting this week. Cheers!