If you’ve heard of milk stouts but aren’t familiar with them, you might wonder if one of the world’s most famous stouts, Guinness, contains milk.
There is no milk in Guinness at any point from the brewery to your glass. Guinness is an Irish stout–also known as a dry stout.
Below, I will go over what is in a pint of Guinness and whether any beers have milk in them. By the end, you will know everything there is to know about beer and milk.
What Ingredients Are in Guinness?
The ingredients in Guinness Draught are relatively simple. There are only seven ingredients needed to make Guinness.
Don’t let that fool you, though–beer requires very particular methods to turn out as tasty as this dry stout.
- Water
- Hops
- Yeast
- Three types of Barley
- Malted
- Roasted
- Base
- Nitrogen
As you can see, there is no milk or other form of dairy in Guinness. If there were, it would not be an Irish stout.
No matter your reason for avoiding dairy, you can enjoy a pint!
However, the brand Guinness does make a milk stout that you should avoid if you are lactose intolerant. The beer Over The Moon is brewed with lactose as one of the ingredients.
Do Any Beers Contain Milk?
Just because Guinness Draught doesn’t have any milk in it doesn’t mean that there are no beers with milk as an ingredient.
Of course, brewers don’t actually use whole or even 2% milk as an ingredient anymore for the most part.
To be more accurate, brewers use lactose or milk sugar. Beers that contain lactose are known as milk or cream stouts.
Brewers use lactose because brewer’s yeast can’t turn it into alcohol like other sugars. This gives the beer a sweeter overall taste and a rich mouthfeel.
One popular example of a milk stout comes from Left Hand Brewing though there are plenty of others on liquor store shelves.
Related: Is There Milk in Baileys?
Are Milk Stouts Healthy?
Adding milk to the name of a beer can make the beer appear more healthy. After all, milk is often seen as a healthy drink. That said, milk stouts are not any more nutritious than other beers.
The only difference between milk stouts and other stouts is the addition of lactose.
This addition does not provide enough for more than one or two beers to be healthy.
With that in mind, beer can be healthy in very small amounts.
This study found that a beer a day for women and two beers a day provided minor benefits.
Of course, there are better beverages when it comes to health. Dairy-free milk is one great choice and can be used in many drinks.
Related: Is There Milk in Milk Stout?
Final Thoughts
Whether you already knew that Guinness has no milk or not, you now know everything you need about milk and beer.
Though beer lovers haven’t drunk beer and milk together regularly since the early 1900s, there is lactose in many beers today.
