What would you brew for this particularly picky in-law?

[dinnerstick]

Help! suggestions solicited!! Father in law likes beer, but is not adventurous. He drinks continental pilseners, but his top beer is grolsch herst(autumn)bok. i doubt many will have had the 'pleasure', but this is a dark color, say dark chestnut brown, quite bitter, relatively thin bodied, excessively sweet unbalanced bock substitute. 6.5% abv or so. you would think the high spicy bitterness would cut away at the cloying sweetness, but nope. the guy likes sweet beer, sweet wine, won't touch a dry wine. but he does like my malty english ales, was very happy with my vienna lager, almost choked on a smoked porter. but i want to make him something like his favorite, something tailored for him as i owe him a favor. i am not going to make any big lagers this year; no time and no fermenter space. but i was toying with the idea of a dark bock recipe fermented cool (15c) with cal ale/s05, a cheater's lager. i abhor the idea of making a sweet beer by the way! thx

 

[sputnam]

possibly a milk stout? i brewed a black ipa and used a fair amount of chocolate malt (a little more than intended) and it was really good. every time I drank it, I wanted chocolate cake. It was still hoppy but probably no longer an ipa but not quite a desert beer either.

 

[Melana]

Eh, I brew for me and my tastes. if others like it... GREAT! if they don't... GREAT!

 

[mdbrewer1]

Eh, I brew for me and my tastes. if others like it... GREAT! if they don't... GREAT!

He said he owed the guy a favor. Why brew him a beer he might not like?

 

[govner1]

Go to the store or growler shop & buy something appropriate "just for him". That way you won't be stuck w/ a keg of beer you won't drink!


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[progmac]

Biermuncher's OctoberFAST ale comes to mind:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f63/biermunchers-oktoberfast-ale-ag-39021/

 

[dinnerstick]

Biermuncher's OctoberFAST ale comes to mind:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f63/biermunchers-oktoberfast-ale-ag-39021/

that looks like a definite possibility. kind of fundamentally similar to the idea of bok with ale yeast, ie german-ish brewing made easy. thanks.
milk stout, it's a nice idea, i would consider it if the guy weren't a roastophobe! melana- your personal brewing mantra duly noted. govner- i would but it's a bit of a copout, it will be meaningful for him that i'm making something especially for him, so i've got to go for it. the favor was a really big design and construction project that saved me a $hi$$$ckload of money, this outweighs the risk of having half a keg of meh beer, at the very worst i can feed it to brett. cheers all!

 

[Brettomomyces]

A 6-7% wee heavy might work too, you could mash high and use enough specialty malts to come in on the sweet side. Or just go for broke and make him a big heavy. But that style would match the sweetness and color and you wouldn't have to faux lager it.

 

[Toga]

The nut brown recipe by lil'sparky would do the trick. I have done a few batches of this with a few mods. Add a pound or two of 2row to bump up the gravity, add some darker chocolate malt such as muntons chocolate, add a quarter pound of munich, and a quarter pound of honey malt. Ferment with wlp02. It will end up a bit sweet and not roasty.