I might bump up the Maris Otter at the expense of some of the Oats and Crystal, but I like it. The IBU's do seem high, but hey...you never know until you try it.

Hope it turns out great.

 

Looks solid to me Craig.

 

Too bitter. Milk stouts are supposed to be sweet hence lower IBUs according to style. Just my opinion.

 

It does seem like it will be too bitter. Maybe the lactose balances it? I'd drop it to 50 ibu instead of 70 and see what it's like then.

 

Bitterness is relevant with sweetness. I never brewed with lactose because I tasted it first (very sweet stuff). 8% will need something to counter the sweetness I would guess.

 

Your recipe looks OK, apart for the Maris Otter, IBUs and lactose...

I lean towards English Mild Ale malt for stouts or I would use more pale Munich malt in this case. For this style I have two hop additions, one at the boil start and then at 30 minutes, between 15 and 25 IBUs. "Lactose", I don't use it. Many breweries in England didn't use it also. I tend to mash high at 69-70c (155f) and use a low attenuation yeast.

This link is to a typical recipe for sweet stout in the 1950s...
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/06/lets-brew-1959-watneys-dairy-maid-sweet.html

I tend to replace the invert with dark crystal and a bit of Carafa III.

 

Other than the ibu's looking a little high, I think it looks pretty solid. With the high gravity and lactose, the ibu's may help balance it out? You totally see those high ibu's on RIS. May be just fine.

That recipe looks odd to me but maybe that's just by today's standards? Seems like a lot of sugar and the ginger sounds really odd. Just me tho.

 

That's what I was thinking. That looks nothing like what I consider to be a milk stout but I guess it has just changed a lot over time?

 

I saw that pinch of ginger too maybe to add a bit of bite. Quite a bit of sugar you'd think it'd dry it out a fair bit too!

 

I thought that recipe would be fun to post... Like most beer brewed by British breweries in the 20th century, invert sugar of various grades was a staple and still is for some breweries. In Watneys case 14% ullage would have kept the beer sweeter. Maybe adding some old beer to the boil would be an idea...

 

It does sound pretty interesting.

 

Just for kicks and giggles I did a party gyle with the spent grains from the NARWHAL clone from Chico this wknd. Added lots of sugar and half# lactose to make a 10gal batch. Lower abv but the lactose adds lots of mouthfeel so now see the reasoning behind the recipe you are planing. Hope i hopped it enough to counter the sweetness. Think it was about 50ibu with og of 1.044.

 

@Craigerrr This is why I bumped ya brew bro. Tasting notes will be after carbonated. Kinda fun to exbeeriment!