Milk Stout Recipe - Suggestions/Tweaks

[zgreenside]

Coming up on a local brewing competition and I want to try to get this recipe nailed down for it. I made this recipe as follows last year, and while it received decent praise, the scores were relatively low (mid to high 20's). Part of the reason was due to it being scored in the wrong category (American stout, rather than sweet stout), so some of the critique was that it was sweeter than a typical american stout, one judge even commenting that it would have placed well in the Sweet stout category...

Overall, I thought it was a great tasting beer, but it is definitely out of style in terms of ABV (hitting a 7.5-8% with what I have listed).
Should I just tone it down and scale the ingredients back to a more moderate 6%? Any issues I could run into doing that? Should I just quit worrying and leave it the F*** alone?

8 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 56.1 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 7.0 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.0 %
1 lbs Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 7.0 %
1 lbs Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 7.0 %
12.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 5.3 %
12.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 5.3 %

0.45 oz Magnum [16.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 23.5 IBUs
0.75 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.60 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 4.8 IBUs
12.0 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) [Boil for 10 min](0.0 SRM) Sugar 5.3 %

1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml] Yeast
(Starter)