Root Beer Milk Stout
Russell Brewing Company

 

A- Like the old school pic on the label of this one! The beer itself pours a 'root beer' or cola color and with a beautiful caramel colored head that starts about two fingers thick! The retention is excellent and appears to be thick and frothy! Carbonation is of course too hard to see and there appears to be good sticky foam clinging to the side of the glass. The consistency of the beer is full bodied and oil like!

S- The aromas are dense and make their way through the air from afar.....this most definitely has a proper Barq's root beer smell happening with sweet heavy brown sugar, sarsaparilla, licorice, caramel, toffee, cola. There are underlying tones of Earthy charred bitter malt, chocolate, deep vanilla paste and a finish that lingers with heavy sweet root beer like aroma! This category really follows what the brewer was aiming for!

T- The flavors really drop off when it comes to root beer, however, this is a milk stout and there is an underlying lactose sweetness about it to go along with burnt black and chocolate malts, subtle Earth, vanilla oak, burnt toast bitterness, creamy yeast, dark cocoa chocolate, strong black coffee, and after a little air, the rootbeer sweetness returns!....give it 5 mins....you'll see!

M/O- Full bodied, smooth and very creamy carbonation, and easy to drink for sure, I would love to re-visit this one again and think it makes a very nice dessert brew! With this said, it makes a really nice digestive liquid....easy on the belly it is! Russel has a winner here and I look forward to the barrel aged

Russell Brewing 'Root Beer Milk Stout' @ 6.5% , served from a 650 ml bottle purchased for $5.40
A-pour is a dark cola brown from the bottle to a near black in the glass with a medium tan head leaving a streaky lace along the pint
S-mild mellow smelling
T-milk/sweet start with hints of root beer on the swallow
MF-ok carbonation , medium body
Ov-just an ok beer
prost LampertLand

 

650ml bottle, available at the BCL.

As someone who quite likes root beer (and as someone who obviously also likes beer), I thought I might enjoy this. Instead, I am reminded of the time I thought liking green tea and liking gelato would mean also liking green tea gelato. It's not terrible, but it's not a combination I'm eager to experience again.

For a stout, it's a bit thin. Herbal flavours of sarsaparilla and anise are prominent. More bitter than I anticipated. I'm not really sure how to fairly rate it, but I definitely won't be having it again.

650ml bottle - so, like a root beer float, but with booze, yeah?

This beer pours a solid black abyss, with scant basal red cola edges, and two flabby fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and bubbly brown head, which leaves some strange layered amorphous blob lace around the glass as it quickly sinks away.

It smells of musty, sassafras-forward craft root beer, bittersweet chocolate, rather testy black licorice, lightly roasted and bready caramel malt, a minor cafe-au-lait note, and some strange leafy and herbal (hop?) bitterness. The taste is edgy metallic cinnamon and clove spice, earthy sassafras (I'm reminded of Silvester the Cat right about now), gritty and grainy caramel malt, an ephemeral wet ashiness, stale milky coffee, generic cocoa powder, a fast-fading anise spiciness, and further untethered herbal and weedy hop bitters.

The carbonation is adequate in its supportive and somewhat tingly frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and fairly smooth, with a nice inborn creaminess mostly there from the get-go. It finishes off-dry, the base malt not budging, and the herbal, earthy, and not altogether unlike root beer notes coming along for the lingering ride.

Overall, this is one of those offerings that suffers unduly in the analysis, but not so much in the straight-up drinking. Yeah, picking this one apart makes it seem like a bit of a fraud - but just sit back and enjoy it (roaring fireplace not included), and everything kinda comes together - a blend of root beer essences and a genial milk stout feeling oh-so-freaking seasonal (not to mention trendy) at the moment.