February 07, 2025

399: James Herrholz of Corporate Ladder Lays it on Thiccc With Award-Winning Pastry Stouts

1 hour 18 minutes

“If you’re a brewer and you’re not making things that you really want to make, or things you want to experiment with and learn more about, then what are you brewing for,” asks James Herrholz, Chief Creative Officer for Corporate Ladder Brewing in Palmetto, Florida. While some may feel “forced” to brew crowd-pleasing adjunct-laden stouts, Herrholz signed on for the challenge, and approaches the style with zeal and a drive to make the very best. Over the past six years, he’s seen incredible results from this dogged and open-minded focus—three GABF medals, including a gold in 2022, while the brewery has maintained its spot on Untappd as the highest-rated brewery in the state of Florida.

In this episode, Herrholz maps out their approach to pastry stout (barrel-aged and not), and along the way he touches on:

using three primary base recipes to adjust for sweetness, roast, and caramel depth

building ranging malt bills with as many as 15 to 18 different malts

using SRM as a proxy for bitterness when considering dark malt impact on recipes

managing the impact of dextrose in adjunct ingredients

splitting different malts between multiple mashes while using long boils to increase Maillard flavors

promoting attenuation through oxygenation, over pitching, and staging sugar additions

maximizing extraction through “spinning” while adding adjuncts in bags in brite tanks

flavor and aroma variations in vanilla due to origin and crop year variations

And more.

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