Dragon's Milk Reserve - Oatmeal Cookie
New Holland Brewing Company

Drinking this warmed up for about 20 minutes not too much in your face aroma mostly cinnamon and raisin but the taste is mended perfectly with the base bitter chocolate and slight coffee. I usually dont even like cinnamon in my beer but it really helps round out the experience and the 2025 doesn't seem to cloying with the sweetness at all. I could see easily finishing the other bottle I got no problem smooth just like the base beer!

From a bottle, a dark pour with a thin beige head and no lacing.
Sweet caramel malt, molasses, brown sugar, vanilla, toasted coconut, raisin, hints of cinnamon and allspice. Mild bourbon flavor.
The 11% booziness is well masked. On the edge of being cloying.

Bottled: 09/25/19. Pitch black. Nice cinnamon, chocolate and brown sugar aroma and flavor with light bourbon character. Nice balance of flavors. Leans light for 11% ABV with a nice warming finish.

 

The pour is jet black with tan & frothy head of foam. The taste is rich roasted malt, bourbon barrel oak, raisins, cocoa, brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, & oats. Moreover, the 11% abv drinks more like a 8.5% abv beer. Cheers! A-

An exceptionally dark and alluring pastry stout with a complex taste that is sweet but not overly cloying with strong hints of vanilla, oats, raisins and brown sugar.
The mouthfeel is exquisite as the flavor floats across the taste buds with a smooth and elegant flair tinged with the head swirling 11% abv, notwithstanding the lack of a true lingering frothy head. Nonetheless, a superb example of an outstanding beer!

So no head?! Yeah, I'm getting absolutely no head with this. Taste is absolutely 10/10 world class, feel is ok, look is jet black. It is the first stout I've had that is slammable like a lager but enough to get you silly. The taste is GOD TIER not even world class. The feel just sucks butt-holes, absolutely no head no matter how hard I pour nor how many different batches I try. Either way, this beer is so good. Try it!

 

 

Black in color with no light penetration. There’s a fingernail beige around the rim and covering half of the top. There’s aroma is of cinnamon and raisins. I’m tasting cinnamon, oats, bourbon, and brown sugar. The mouth is thick, viscous, and a bit warm with alcohol.

 

 

Nice pitch black pour with a good head and sticky lace fingers on the glass. Smell and taste, you guessed it, like oat meal cookies infused with bourbon. Very easy to drink and a very good brew.

 

One of the best beers I’ve enjoyed. The difference between the front end and the finish is subtle which I like. The color and consistency of the head with its tight tan color make for a nice appearance. I love how smooth this beer gets as it warms up too.

A very dark, almost black brown with a fine lightish brown, lacy head. Fairly light smell with chocolate and more alcohol than noticed by taste. The taste is very chocolatey with caramelized parts and vanilla. It's got a very thick texture and the sweetness outweighs the taste of the alcohol.

 

12 oz. bottle
11.0% ABV
Bottled: 07/10/2025
$15.99 4-pk @ Publix - Got as a BOGO


AROMA: Sweet with fair amounts of raisins, oatmeal, and booze. I also get faint hints of charred wood, roasted marshmallow, and vanilla. All-in-all a very nice aroma!

APPEARANCE: Pours an opaque black, with a tall (3-finger), loosely-frothy, dirty-tan head that dissipates moderately-quick with moderate lacing. It looks quite compelling in my clear glass, but I do wish the head stuck around a bit longer.

TASTE: Sweet with flavors of raisins and booze being at the forefront, oatmeal and chocolate in the middle, and vanilla and bourbon bringing up the rear. It's a very tasty beer, but the sweetness factor is high and borders right on my sweetness tolerance. Any sweeter and I would have a hard time finishing the beer. I'm also not a big fan of extreme "booze" flavors, but in this case, it's prevalent without being overpowering. But again, it's right on the border of my tolerance.

My biggest "gripe" on the taste is that, as the beer warms, I lose the overall oatmeal cookie flavor, because the raisin and booze flavors really start to take over.

MOUTHFEEL: Full-bodied with a thick, silky-smooth texture. This is a very luxurious feeling beer! In reality, carbonation is about average, but the thick texture gives the illusion that the carbonation is significantly below-average. Don't fall for the illusion, there's plenty of "fizz" in the beer! To be honest, I don't think I've ever had a beer with this type of mouthfeel, before. I find it to be very alluring!

OVERALL: I've had other Dragon's Milk varieties, so I kinda had an idea of what to expect. However, this one is much sweeter than I was expecting. But in its defense, the sweetness factor doesn't really increase much as the beer warms. For me, that's its saving grace from adding it to my "very nice, but I'll never buy it again" list. Given the nice overall flavor and luxurious texture, I would buy this every few years. If they lowered the sweetness factor, I would buy it every year. And if they tamed the "booze" flavor a little too, then I would buy it a few times a year.