Maple-flavored stouts is probably why I got into brewing beer in the first place. Having tried Founders CBS, I knew that this is where beer peaked for me. Eventually, I had discovered Double Stack and my journey to achieve the depth of flavor that these decadent beers have hasn't stopped since.
Without much of a starting point, I knew that this stout had to have maple in it, coffee, and had to be 12%. My base imperial pastry stout was a great starting point.
Another thing we know is that Great Notion backsweeten this beer with real maple syrup. Andy Miller mentioned this in Craft Beer & Brewing podcast at ~13 minutes into the pod.
Grist
80.5% Maris Otter
5.0% Simpsons DRC
5.0% Crisp Pale Chocolate
2.5% Crisp Brown Malt
2.5% Honey Malt
2.5% Black Malt
2.0% Carafa III
Numbers
OG: 1.119 ~ 11.8% ABV
FG: 1.029
Wyeast 1318
Hops: EKG (30 IBU)
Water Chemistry: Ca 151; Mg 22; Na 43; Cl 200; SO4 90; pH 5.3
With recipe ready to go and 50+ lbs of grain purchased, my buddy and I set out to brew this elusive beer. We wanted to brew 11 lbs to have 5 gallons worth for each of us.
Brewday was fun as hell. We opened some BCS barleywines and enjoyed late-septemeber Chicago weather.Well, shit. If you can see the OG in the above photo, it's 1.096, and showed 1.098 once the sample cooled down. My buddy and I haven't brewed this big of a batch on this huge mash tun yet (we both BIAB), so the results weren't what we expected. 10% isn't all that terrible though, Onward!
On a bonus note, we got 5 gallons of another 1.060 OG beer with second runnings! This will live on to make an incredible pecan stout just in time for Thanksgiving.
If you're new to my blogs, here's my process for adding maple syrup that's inspired by the Great Notion technique. For this beer, I added 8oz of Grade B (aka Grade A Dark Robust) maple syrup during high krausen, and another 16oz after fermentation. I waited until the beer had hit its FG and then treated it with K-Sorbate and Campden tablet. 24 hours later, I added the syrup. This is for 5 gallons.
Final Numbers
9.8% ABV
OG: 1.098
FG: 1.028
After syrup:
FG: 1.032
At this point, I carbonated the beer and soaked 5oz of whole medium-roast coffee beans in the cold keg for 48 hours.
Initial thoughts before coffee was added were that this beer was very sweet. Coffee really helped balance it out, bring some roast, depth and body.
Aroma: Big coffee aroma dominates the nose. Even a month after the bean addition, this beer dominated by a roasty, vanilla-rich coffee aroma.
Flavor: Coffee notes permeate on the initial taste, before being overwhelmed by chocolate notes and maple sweetness. The finish is unmistakably all maple syrup. Sweet (yet drinkable), sticky, breakfast stout!
Double Stack Side by Side
I'm very happy to have a friend living in Seattle who's kind enough to support my cripping maple syrup stout addition.I'm beyond excited to try these two side-by-side. Let's start with my clone:
My version: Creamy coffee notes, maple is present upon opening and first sips, supplemented with creamy coffee, sort of like like a nice cup of joe with creamer.
Original Double Stack: As soon as you open the can, smell of maple is much more sticky and intense. Flavor is surprisingly roasty with much less caramel but much more roasty coffee. Overall, it's much less sweet and much more in your face with maple.
Roasted malts definitely have to be increased here to stand up to the large amount of sweetness from the maple syrup and overall ABV. I'm going to double those at least.
Another point is maple itself. I've actually made much more maple-forward beers before myself, so I have concluded that the brand of syrup you use actually really matters. I'll be testing a few different brands of maple in a pint of Guinness before I put maple in my beer next time.
I'm not entirely convinced that the syrup used here is all natural. Great Notion mentioned that they indeed back-sweeten during their podcast at Craft Beer & Brewing, but is it possible that they also use maple extract/flavoring alongside real syrup. I'll definitely look into using less syrup overall and supplementing some of the flavor with high-quality extract to avoid making the beer too sweet.
A couple of days after friend and I finished our brewday, I got an email response from one of the founders of Great Notion, James Dugan, with some feedback on my recipe. He said the following:
Hey Dmitri,
Your base recipe looks good. I can recommend a few small changes. We don’t use any crystal malt in Double Stack, so no DRC or Honey malt. We do use roasted barley, so you could swap that for black malt. We also use some brown sugar in the boil.
Thanks for reaching out, and best of luck in Chicago.
Cheers,
James
I hope you enjoyed the read and would love to hear from you if you've tried brewing this bad boy. Reach out through Instagram or my email below. With that, I leave you with the grist for next time:
Grist
80.0% Maris Otter
7.0% Roasted Barley
5.0% Crisp Pale Chocolate
2.5% Crisp Brown Malt
2.5% Brown Sugar
2.0% Carafa III
Yeast: US-05 for higher attenuation
8oz Maple post-fermentation
Beannilla Maple flavoring or LorAnn Maple Bakery Emulsion
Cheers!
The Original.
