Milk Stout
Troubled Monk Brewery

 

1L howler from the Sherbrooke Liquor store - always glad to see new stuff from this Red Deer brewing concern.

This beer pours a fairly solid black, with prominent basal amber edges, and a thin cap of wispy and bubbly brown head, which leaves a few instances of reaching tendril lace around the glass as things quickly progress.

It smells of bready and doughy caramel malt, a bit of free-agent char, cafe-au-lait, medium cocoa powder, muddled dark orchard fruity notes, and some plain leafy, weedy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is semi-sweet, grainy and bready caramel malt, bittersweet chocolate, melted vanilla ice cream, ethereal wet ash, day-old coffee grounds, a still hard to differentiate dark stone fruitiness, and more understated earthy, leafy, and estery floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is quite laid-back in its mostly just supportive frothiness, the body a decent middleweight, and pleasantly smooth, with a wee airy creaminess presiding almost from the onset. It finishes off-dry, the caramel, coffee, and milk chocolate essences all jovially jockeying for lingering position.

Overall, this is certainly an enjoyable and quaffable version of the style, in that it is replete with flavour, but not rendered so heavily on the sweet side of things as might be. Anyhoo, definitely check this one out, if you happen to get the chance.

TM's latest seasonal is a nice departure from some of their previous efforts. The rich and roasty malt base of this beer is extremely pleasant. The added lactose definitely makes for a sweet and smooth brew. It looks great, though it has a bit of a thin mouthfeel. Overall, another solid effort from the boys at my local brewery.