Their milkshakes brought all the boys to the yard.
Frank Brewing, Craft heads Brewing Company and Motor Craft Ales are helping introduce Windsor, Ontario to Milkshake IPA’s at the 2017 Windsor Craft Beer Festival, taking place October 13-14.
Milkshake IPA’s are a new style of IPA that was inspired by 3 Floyds Brewing in Indiana, USA, adding lactose to their traditional IPA. Lactose is a milk sugar which, up until that point, was almost solely used for stouts. This slowly caught on with other brewers and has evolved into the addition of oats, wheat, and more to add a more thicker mouth feel, not unlike stouts. This thicker, creamier, almost milkshake mouth feel with a cloudier look and slightly sweeter taste, has been gaining popularity over the past year.
“Milkshake IPA’s are like unicorns,” says Bryan Datoc, co-owner of Craft Heads. “They are often talked about and admired but they are rarely seen, especially in Windsor.” While Craft Heads was the first local brewery to showcase this style of IPA to the Windsor region back in April 2017, the Windsor Craft Beer Festival is the first time a contingent of this style of beer will be showcased to the masses.
“Our Coconut Milkshake IPA we did back in April was one of our experimental beers that we like trying out at the brewery,” he says. “It gave us a good baseline of what a Milkshake IPA should be so we tweaked the recipe and added a few things to make our Unicorn Nectar Milkshake IPA which will be available at the festival.”
Brad Wright, head brewer at Frank Brewing, and some of his co-workers thought before they do a big batch they would play around with it for the festival. “What better way to get feed back then from a beer fest,” Brad asked. “There will be a large crowd that can give you almost instant feedback.”
Frank’s version of the Milkshake IPA is loaded up with vanilla beans and strawberries to give it a nice punch of flavour. Brad says that after the Windsor Craft Beer Festival, patrons to Frank Brewing can expect other versions of Milkshake IPA’s in their tap room as well. “We are going to make a point of getting back on our one offs every week,” he says. “Once we get a recipe perfected we will look to adding it to our lineup.”
Jay Souilliere of Motor Craft Ales says forget what you didn’t like about the highly bitter, puckering IPA’s and try this new style as it continues to make haters into lovers.
“As much as it sounds simple just adding these ingredients, it is a tricky beer to master because of those additions,” says Jay. Motor Craft Ales will be offering a Strawberry Milkshake IPA at the festival.
“All I know, it has risen to the top 1-2% of our beer sales at Motor leading up to the festival.”
