This would have to be one of my favourite stouts – hands down. I just love its milky sweetness.
Brewed in Japan by the Kiuchi Brewery, the Hitachino Nest Lacto Sweet Stout is a milk stout. Having tried to make one with my homebrew set-up (but not coming close to this tasty number) I know a little about the makings of this style. It’s called a milk stout because the brewer adds lactose to the beer.

Now lactose contains a lot of sugars that yeast won’t gobble up and convert to alcohol – which is why they’re usually called unfermentable sugars. Because they don’t get turned into alcohol these sugars remain in the finished beer, giving it some sweetness (we’re talking a mild sweetness here. It’s nothing like the soft-drink sweetness of ciders or alco-pops).

For the most part, sweetness in beer isn’t a desirable trait. But stouts are an exception – with their normal flavours of coffee or chocolate a sweet milky note is not at all out of place. It’s very welcome in the Hitachino sweet stout, which has coffee notes on the nose and a lovely milky chocolate flavour and wonderful smoothness (another byproduct of the addition of lactose).

While most stouts are designed to sip slowly and often only have one of, you could easily drink a few of these sweet stouts in a sitting because they’re so very tasty. And at four per cent alcohol, they’re not going to knock you on your backside either.