Recipe Guidance: Coffee Cream Stout

For some reason or another, I was having a Guiness the other day and my fiancee had a sip, which led her to think she'd like something dark for the Fall and Winter months. So I'm being commissioned to make a coffee cream stout. She wants something that has a good, frothy head like a Guiness, something that's sweeter and fuller than the Guiness, possibly with the use of Irish Cream coffee beans and lactose (I believe?) for a cream flavor. She would like it to be about as bitter as a Guiness in terms of hop quantity/presence.

Can anyone help me tailor a recipe, or offer one that they've tried to accomplish this request? Sure, I could try to make one myself, but I'd like to ask your opinion. That's why we hang out on this forum, right? :fro: I'd also like to get the right complementary yeast for this sort of thing as well. I think the key is the mouthfeel and the head, which I have had trouble replicating. Would using a helluva lot of oats and malted wheat (as well as chocolate wheat malt) be the way to accomplish that? Like I said, I haven't done anything like this before and would like to get it right the first time. Thanks everyone!

I can't provide a definitive answer, but I'll raise a few points, anyway.

Use a lot of chocolate malt. I've used upwards of 4 lbs in a 5 gallon batch, which some people thought had coffee in it - it didn't. It was a very robust black beer, without using any black patent or roasted barley.

Mash at high temperature to leave more unfermentables. As an extracter (with steeping) up to this point I've gotten there by using Laaglander, but that seems to be history now, so I'm starting to learn about mashing.

Good frothy head and coffee beans may be antagonistic, due the oils in the coffee beans. Wheat malt, oatmeal or oat malt should all help the head. Getting a "coffee" flavor from chocolate malt would avoid the problem - if it was the coffee (not irish cream, unfortunately) you were after.

Homebrew Beer & HomeMade Wine Making Spring, Texas; Brew-It-Yourself
That place still has laaglander

Consider adding some Irish Whiskey, or more economically, some flavored syrup like you see at a coffee shop (remembering that the sugar in it will ferment out), to get the Irish Cream flavor, and then use regular coffee beans. I have a batch going that I used coffee malt for, and that really has given it a nice coffee aroma and flavor, though you'd still want to use beans if you want that to be up front.

Lactose seems to be the best way to make a sweet stout. It gives you more precise control of the sweetness and adds some creamy mouthfeel.

I brewed an "imperial Irish coffee stout" about 2 months ago. It will be ready to drink in 2 weeks.
5.5 USG

So here's my recipe, you might want to cut on the grain/DME/sugars bill to lower the abv, add some flaked oats and maybe use a little less coffee. You can also use Wyeast 1056 or 1084.
Btw, I had a 77% efficiency for that one (OG 1.116) and a 76% apparent attenuation (FG 1.027 before adding lactose).

Boil and 1st week in primary
5 USG
8.8# 2 row
2.2# munich malt
1.1# caramel 80L
1.1# Belgian B
1.1# roasted barley
1.1# chocolate malt
1.1# carapils
1.1# flaked barley
2.2# ligh DME
calcium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate in mash water
Northern brewer and chinook to get to 50 IBUs
Irish moss (15 min)
Yeast nutrients and yeast energizer
200g (~7oz) ground coffee beans (Sumatra bought at Cosco) [5 min]
Wyeast 1028 London ale (Activator + starter)
-------------
2nd week in primary
.5 USG
1.1# molasse
1.1# corn sugar
Wyeast 1762 Belgian abbey II (Propagator + starter)
-------------
Secondary (4 weeks total)
note: nice coffee taste, slight alcohol warming, delicious, about 11.8% abv
300g (~10.6oz) ground coffee bean
-------------
at bottleing (4 weeks total)
note: totally amazing! 12.5% abv
1.1# lactose
100g (~3.5oz) corn sugar for priming (2.1 volumes)
26oz (750ml) Jameson Irish whiskey

I love Sumatra coffee because it's highly aromatic with a bitter dark roasted side.

Hey Martin,

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but this recipe looked fantastic. I'm curious how it turned out for you. Is this something you let age in the bottle?

I've got just about all the ingredients lined up for it (still need to get some coffee). I had to change to a partial-grain variation with some help from a local brewshop, but I'm really excited to get this started.

Doing this one next batch!!!