Stouticus American Stout

Travis, the COO of FHS (the company from which the Brew Master collects paychecks) came up with the idea that I should brew an FHS beer.  I asked him what kind of beer he wanted:

Lager or Ale?
Color:  Yellow, Gold, Amber, Red, Brown, Black
Flavor:  Hoppy, Balanced, Malty
Ingredients:  Wheat, Barley, Rye, Combination of any two, All three
Alcohol:  Low, Medium, High, REALLY High
Spices?  Fruit?   Other requested flavors?

He sent that out to everyone in the company for feedback and asked for a name and logo.

The best name suggestion was "Stouticus".

One person gave specific suggestions for what she would like the beer to be like:

Rouge OREgasmic Ale

McMenamins Terminator Stout

Rouge Mocha Porter

With the name "Stouticus" and one of the suggestions an American Stout, I decided to go in that direction.  The Terminator Stout says it uses pale and Munich malts, some crystal 40, and some black barley.  It says it uses Cascade hops.  The beer has a 1.065 OG and an ABV of 6.45%. 

Batch 1 of Stouticus borrowed some of the specifications from the McMenamins Terminator, but the Brew Master put a few of his own twists on the recipe.  Stouticus uses good old fashioned American pale 2-row malt with about 10% Munich malt and about the same amount of crystal 40.  Black barley and chocolate malt give it a big, bold roasted flavor and dark color.  I also added in some Carafa III to add some color and to hopefully subdue too much of the aggressive roast from the black barley.  Cascade hops provide a bit of citrusy bite.  Sheppy Brew's "house yeast", a harvested American Ale II strain (WY 1272), gives Stouticus a clean profile with just a touch of nutty flavor to compliment the dark, roasted chocolate and coffee flavors from the dark malts.  Its alcohol content is on the low end of an American stout.  But, it should be a treat for all you stout-lover's out there.

At bottling time of the first batch, I decided to add in about half a pound of lactose to increase the body and maybe add in a bit of sweetness to balance the dry roasted black barely. I adjusted the recipe in batch #2 to get rid of the lactose and increase body with higher amounts of grains and higher mash temps. Batch #2 used Centennial hops instead of Cascade .. mostly because I had lots of centennial in the freezer.

I shared a large portion of the first batch of this beer with my fellow FHS employees, and it seemed to be a pretty big hit.

I did not get any logo submissions, so I grabbed some photos of the owners and dumped them on one of the standard Sheppy Brew backgrounds.

Click here for blog entries about Stouticus American Stout.

Recipe Characteristics

Ingredients

Mash Profile

If steeping, remove grains, and prepare to boil wort

Brewing Record