Maple French Toast Ale

It's hardly a secret that I dislike pastry stouts and overly gimmicky beers. As of late, the market has become oversaturated with these beers. They're often cloyingly sweet with no annoying elements such as bitterness. Many brewers also enjoy adding "fun" ingredients like marshmallows or candy to their beers. Doing so is neither "fun" nor "innovative," it's idiotic.

Don't get me wrong; I'm no stranger to concept beers. I enjoy brewing them, but my philosophy is different from some other brewers. When I brew with specialty ingredients, the goal is for them to harmonize with the rest of the beer. Each ingredient should belong in the beer and make it better as a whole. I start with a concept, then I write the whole recipe with that concept in mind.

I'm definitely NOT adding this to my beer.

For this beer I want a fairly pronounced toasty and bready malt flavor to go with the syrup and spices. Amber malt is known for its toasty and bready flavor, so I'm using quite a bit of that along with some brown and crystal malts for extra nuance. I'll be back-sweetening in the keg with maple syrup, so I want the bitterness to be high for balance. For the spices I'm going to make a tincture with ceylon cinnamon and bourbon vanilla beans.

Recipe details

• OG 1,078
• FG ~1,011
• ABV 9%
• SRM 25
• IBU 70

Malts and sugars

• 70% maris otter
• 10% brown malt
• 10% crystal 60 l
• 10% amber malt
• 2000 g extra dark maple $yrup
• 300 g extra dark maple $yrup (in the keg)

Mash temperature: 66 c for one hour

Hops

70 IBU magnum at 60 minutes

Yeast

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale (1 l of actively fermenting starter added at 18 c)

Water

• 120 ppm chloride
• 60 ppm sulfate

Other

• Two sticks of ceylon cinnamon
• Two bourbon vanilla beans
• 1/2 krm protafloc

Notes