The Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout

Brewed by The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery
Style: Sweet Stout
Farmville, North Carolina USA

Bottle. Pours black, but is not as starless as your typical stout with a thin beige head. Chocolate, toffee, and vanilla dominate the scent. Mouth-full is delightful: A steady bitter climb leads to a viscid, lactose, burnt caramel freefall. Perhaps a bit too biting for a sweet stout, but I can’t blame Duck-Rabbit for being aggressive. The body could be thicker, but I think you would lose some of the milkiness if this were so.

Poured a dark black and allowed some light through at the top. The head was brown, medium thin, and creamy. The aroma was sweet, definitely some lactose in there and kind of grainy. The flavor was very grainy, sweet, slightly roasted, and also shows definite lactose. I don’t think the rating truly shows the beers quality but I can also understand how it has attained this average.

Pours black with a fizzy, off-white/tan head, lasting, sporting some lined lacing. Aroma is sweet creamy chocolate malt (meal, cookie), yeast (dough, earth), cocoa, and malty lactose milk. Flavor is a mouth full of chocolate, vanilla, creamy malt and yeast with some ashy coffee notes. Medium bodied and fizzy, dry and lively palate.

Bottle courtesy of jonathan3584, best before Jan-06. Dark brown, beige head, light showing through. Aroma is all coffee up front, faint spicy licorice background. Flavor has a nice chocolate, licorice kick up front, but fades to coffee rather quickly and finishes with some mellowed out spicy hop bitterness. Mouthfeel thins out once in awhile. Otherwise not bad, just not my cup of tea. Tad surprised at the overall.

Bottled. Beer is very dark ash brown with a small, frothy, beige, mostly and rapidly diminishing head.<P> The aroma is sweet and again, best word for it is luxe. Malty with moderate notes of toasted grain, light-to-moderate notes of caramel, light molasses, cookie; Hoppy with a light note of resin/pine, trace of tarragon; Yeasty with a light note of dank basement; Light miscellaneous notes of green apple peel, oaky vanilla, burbon, moderate creamy milk note glosses the whole ball of wax.<P> The flavor is moderately sweet, lightly bitter, light-to-moderately acidic with a longer-than-average lightly bittersweet finish.<P> The body is light, the texture is watery and the carbonation is lively.

Being lactose-intollerant, I must say that this beer is a forbidden fruit which makes me like it more. That made no sense. Looks good, smells good, tastes good.

Excellent milk stout. Good balance between bitter and sweet. It has that nice, distictive lactic character. Definitely worth a try.

Bottle, BB 11/06. Head is initially average sized, frothy/fizzy, light brown, mostly lasting. Body is dark brown. Aroma is moderately malty (chocolate milk, roasted grain, molasses), trace hops (resin), with notes of berries, minerals, vanilla, leather, ashes. Flavor is moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly to moderately sweet, lightly acidic, lightly to moderately bitter. Medium body, creamy texture, lively carbonation. Quite delightful for the style, even though it’s not one I can get excited about (one of my least favorite stout substyles). Very intriguing nose and a pleasant mouthfeel.