Stone Brewing Introduces Stone Coffee Milk Stout

California’s award- winning Stone Brewing has released yet another new beer and once again, it’s a beer that is based on a homebrew recipe from one of its own employees.

This new beer is Stone Coffee Milk Stout and it’s brewed using lactose and whole coffee beans for authentic flavor. Originally named Gallagher’s After Dinner Stout, this beer is the brain child of Brian Gallagher, Stone Brewing’s brewery trainer and it was first brewed using the 10- barrel pilot brewing system at Stone World Bistro & Gardens. The beer was a huge hit with the staff and the decision was quickly made to brew the beer on a larger scale.

Stone Brewmaster Mitch Steele is among many who sing this beer’s praises.

“Brian did a wonderful job developing this recipe and was able to artfully overcome the challenge of brewing a low-alcohol beer without it tasting too thin or watery,” explains Steele. “Because of the positive response from Team Stone and those lucky enough to taste the small-batch brew, we decided to brew it on our 120-barrel system and make it more widely available for craft beer enthusiasts across the country.”

Stone Coffee Milk Stout is surprisingly low in alcohol compared to the brewery’s other products. It contains only 4.2 percent alcohol by volume with 40 IBU of bitterness. Apparently, the Stone brewing team was able to formulate the recipe and brew the beer in just the right way to avoid any watery character.

Brian Gallagher was ecstatic to learn that his creation would be a nationally distributed Stone beer:

“I was thrilled to find out that my ‘little beer’ would go on to be part of the Stone lineup and be distributed nationally,” said Gallagher. “To make this beer stand out from others, I added coffee beans at a very early stage in the brewing process, which helped bring out the roast character from the coffee, while eliminating bitter acidity and astringency.”

Stone Coffee Milk Stout matches up very nicely with a wide array of foods. To add some fun to the release day festivities, Stone Brewing is asking its fans to share pictures and possibly recipes of foods that match well with Stone Coffee Milk Stout. The pictures can be shared via twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, and in the Stone Coffee Milk Stout web page. Be sure to tag your post with the hashtag #PairedWith so that everyone can quickly find your photo.

Innovation never sleeps at Stone Brewing Company and it’s nice to see yet another beer release contributed by one of the company’s loyal employees. Look for Stone Coffee Milk Stout at places where Stone beer is already sold, starting immediately.