Milk Stout

Milk Stouts have always fascinated me. Beer and milk are two things I don't generally think of as complimentary flavors, just like coffee and beer... Stouts, being so dark and malty make it all possible. The sweet from the lactose sugar helps mellow out the bitterness from such a high concentration of dark malt. Coffee is at the other end of the spectrum, and something I really don't care for. Somewhere in between lies the Lancaster Milk Stout. I know what you're thinking, it says Milk Stout right on the bottle, so it should be sweet, smooth and dark. It's most of those things but I think it has a couple important flaws.

Left Hand's Milk Stout is a creamy textured, creamy flavored chocolaty Milk Stout. At 5.2% alcohol this is a beer you could drink a six pack of over the course of a cold winter's night without being sidelined the next morning. A very manageable ABV isn't this beer's selling point though, this is a great mellow stout with a fantastic flavor profile. The Milk Stout has a really mellow aroma, like chocolate milk with a hint of roasted barley. The appearance of this beer is fairly pedestrian as well, it's pitch black with a very thin tan colored head. It's easy to be underwhelmed when you have your first Left Hand Milk Stout.

Sam Adams Cream Stout is one of those beers I've passed by a thousand times and never thought to pick up. I finally grabbed a bottle to give a formal review. For some reason it never occurred to me that this is a Milk Stout... I mean, it doesn't say Milk Stout on the label but I never put much thought into what a Cream Stout really is, but it made sense as soon as I took a sip of this beer. Though Sam Adams' Cream Stout doesn't taste quite as creamy as I like my Milk Stouts to be, it's still a solid beer. Maybe that's why they decided to call this beer a Cream Stout and not a Milk Stout... either way, it's definitely more Stout than cream.