18th Street What's In the Box

White Stout. Brewed with lactose sugar cocoa nibs and cinnamon.
In collaboration with Beer Geeks.
Celebrating se7en years!!
(from label)

What’s in the Box will be a lactose (milk sugar) white stout brewed with cocoa nibs, star anise, cinnamon, clove, Dark Matter Coffee and Madagascar vanilla beans. There’s a whole lot going on there, so let’s take a closer look.

First off, you’re thinking – white stout? In beer terms, we generally have come to assume that stouts are dark and roasty brews, but the term stout originally was meant to be associated as simply a strong beer. But over the past few years, creative brewers have developed a white stout recipe, which omits the dark and roasted malts from the grain bill (which imparts a stout’s darker color) and replaces them with coffee, vanilla, and cacao nibs which impart the desired bitterness and roast characteristics, but not the color. So, in reality, the beer, as 18th Street brewer Rich Mendoza notes, is essentially a tricked up IPA.

The beer features Crystal and Falconer hops, and should check in at around 7% ABV.