Rep from San Diego’s Belching Beaver just came in and poured their beers. All of them had ingredients lists on them and one of them, the Peanut Butter Milk Stout (tastes better than it sounds), listed Ethyl Alcohol as an ingredient. What possible procedure or technique could require listing that as a separate ingredient?
PS: it was very full bodied but only 5.3% ABV
No one? Any brewers here have at least a theory?
Maybe if you actually ferment peanut butter you get something really nasty.
P Hickner
Roberto,
The only reason to put ethyl alcohol on the label would be if they added ethyl alcohol to the beer. In fact, I don’t believe they could put ethyl alcohol on the label if they didn’t add it.
Hmm…it’s only 5.3% ABV, did something in the recipe stick the fermentation?
Peanut Extract? (i.e. like Almond Extract)
Being a Milk Stout, there’s unfermentable sugar in there. I don’t think they’d add distillate because of a stuck fermentation. They probably have intentionally produced a beer with lots of RS and not a lot of fermentable sugar, and then added some alcohol to get it to taste the way they want. It sounds really weird, but that’s my guess. With an ingredient listed, that way, they must be adding some distillate. I’m sure if you email the brewery they’ll tell you exactly what they do. Maybe you can report back.
I’ve got the rep looking into it.