Stone - Coffee Milk Stout

Go into the beer acknowledging that the abv is low and that you will be drinking a very sessionable milk stout/porter. There has been great coffee aroma/flavor in 4 of the 5 bottles I have had. I still have one left...but one was very metallic tasting and I was not happy with it. Aside from that if you do as the first sentence says...there is no reason to think poorly of the beer. People's complaints seem to be with the fact that it is thin...(it has to be) which is fine, but the beer is what it is.

 

Stone's QC is so fanatical that I think they wound up producing a beer that was almost too clean with the Coffee Milk Stout. For anyone who has a palate that prefers the more complex, bold flavors, I can see why it may be a let-down. It really is a lovely beer, though. If you didn't enjoy it, try it again from a cask or on nitro somewhere and you may have a change of heart.

 

maybe its just me then,i dont know.i seem to perfer beers that are higher in abv.ill probably try stone's sublimely self righteous ale though.there was another craft beer brand that had a black ipa that sounded interesting

 

If that's the case, that's absolutely fine. Everyone can and should just like what they like. Just saying that for what I believe the beer is on paper, or what it is trying to be, it succeeds at. If people do not prefer this type of beer or even enjoy it compared to barrel aged options of 12-15+ %, then yeah this beer won't be up your alley.

 

No. Just no.

The problem isn't the mild flavors or light mouthfeel. Everyone expects that, or should expect that, given how low the alcohol content is. It's the weakest beer Stone has brewed in 15 years; it says so right on the label. We all expected a session-worthy beer here.

But the name says Coffee Milk Stout. As any kind of milk stout, session or otherwise, this fails utterly. You need the type of creamy mouthfeel universal to all beers brewed with lactose in order for your milk stout to be...well, a milk stout. Guinness has a creamier texture than this without any lactose at all. Ugh.

 

Already had it on tap last week. Sorry, but meh. I am drinking an Enjoy By 10/31/14 as I type this, which is just incredible. Stone gets almost everything right. But CMS and GoTO....no, just no.

 

I had this and Founders Breakfest Stout in the same night. I enjoy a lower ABV easy drinking beer but this just did not present enough for me to like it near as much as the founders. I by no means hated it though, i would drink it again.

 

Wow! This is good! Hard to believe the ABV is so low. It's got a ton of flavor.

 

founders sexy porter x1000000

took the words out of my mouth. id vastly prefer a guiness over another of this.

 

So since this has come out I have had two 'sessionable' coffee stouts, one from Kane (Civil Twilight at 3.7% abv) and Narrangansett Coffee Milk Stout (5.3% abv) and it just amazes me just how much more coffee flavor is in both of those as compared to Stone's.

The Narrangansett Coffee Milk Stout is actually exactly what I expected the Stone Coffee Milk Stout to be. That's a pretty damn good beer.

 

I had a bottle yesterday, and made extra sure to align my expectations with a "light" experience; still, this beer was just very... Okay. I thought the charred malt taste really snuffed out most of the complexities I picked up in the nose, including the coffee - kind of a one-trick pony, this beer. Overall though, it's a good beer for what it is and what it set out to be, just nothing outstanding (especially @ $10+ a sixer). I feel it could be improved upon.

 

Without hyperbole, Founders Porter is one billion times better.