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Milk stout made its return to Portland on Wednesday, Sept.
20, when beer aficionados gathered at the Beulahland Coffee
and Alehouse to celebrate the release of the new batch of
Collaborator Milk Stout.
Milk and beer? Is this just another attempt to jump on
the overly traveled "Got Milk?" bandwagon?
Nah--milk stout got there first. Marketed in turn-of-the-century
England as a restorative beverage much as Red Bull is today,
milk stout was sweetened with lactose (milk sugars). Brewers
originally claimed that every pint contained "the energizing
carbohydrates of 10 ounces of pure dairy milk." Officials
later forbade any such claims of health benefits in beer,
and the style all but disappeared after the 1950s.
Fast-forward to 1997, when Widmer Brothers Brewing and
the home-brewers of the Oregon Brew Crew formed the Collaborator
project as a way of introducing non-home-brewers to interesting
beer styles. Milk Stout was the first beer produced in the
project and now the cow Stout is back.
Collaborator Milk Stout is smooth and chewy with an aroma
of roasting coffee, and the lactose gives it a nice candy-like
sweetness without making it thick or syrupy. Its silky smoothness
and lighter body set it apart from other stouts and makes
it highly quaffable. Now, I won't say drinking it gave me
any more energy than all the other beers I quaff, but it
is definitely a pleasing beverage.
After this batch of Milk Stout is gone, an Old Ale designed
by Brew Crew members Gary Corbin and Michael Rasmussen will
be released. Referred to by the brewers as Old Hallucinator,
this big, sweet, warmingly alcoholic beer was brewed over
a year ago and will be ready to tap in early November.
In other beer news:
Hair of the Dog's new beer, Ruth, was released
Sunday, Sept. 24, at the Horse Brass Pub. This tasty American
pale ale has an apple-pie fruitiness in the aroma, a solid
body with a clean hop flavor and lemongrass notes, a punch
of hop bitterness and a nice sweetness. At only 4.5 percent
alcohol by volume, it has just a hint of warmth to remind
you that it's a sister to HOTD beers Adam (9 percent) and
Fred (10 percent). Ruth is a beer that never lies down;
even after the hops have numbed your taste buds, the sweetness
shines through, ending with flavor from "first wort hopping,"
a German technique in which hops are added only at the beginning
of the boil.
Ruth marks a drop in size from Hair of the Dog's usual
brews; it's actually brewed on its own, unlike Ed, the small
beer made from the ingredients left over from Fred.
For information on the Oregon Brew Crew and home-brewing,
visit www.oregonbrewcrew.com.
Beulahland Coffee and Ale House (118 NE 28th Ave.):
This funky cafe with eclectic decor boasts the best punk
jukebox in town and a good selection of Northwest microbrews.
Milk stout will also be available at the Widmer Brewery
Gausthaus (929 N Russell St., 281-3333), It's a Beautiful
Pizza (3341 SE Belmont St., 233-5444), Hot Lips Pizza (1909
SW 6th Ave., 224-0311), The Old Lompoc Brewery (1616 NW
23rd Ave., 225-1855), and the Dublin Pub (6821 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale
Highway, 297-2889).
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