Duck Rabbit Milk Stout
By John & Dad on August 21, 2008 @ 8 PM (6 Comments)
It’s Thursday Beer Love time – which means Father and Son have a terrific excuse to drink a beer together in the name of Beer Love Science. We’re The BeerFathers after all, lest we forget. This week we have the Duck Rabbit Milk Stout as our test subject. Past experience with Duck Rabbit beers have set the bar pretty damn high, with their Duck Rabbit Baltic Porter setting the benchmark. Can the Milk Stout compete? Yes it can, in it’s own unique way.
All Duck Rabbit beers come to us from the Duck-Rabbit Brewery over in Farmville, NC, where Son Beer Love still says he’s going to take a field trip one day. We served up the Milk Stout in a tulip glass and got an initial beer temperature of 52 F. The ABV is a little low on this one (compared to the Baltic Porter) at 5.7%, but that’s okay.
Our initial pour gave us a generous 2″ large foamy medium brown head that gave us a fair amount of head lacing as it dissipated slowly into the black opaque body below. It tends to foam up really well when you pour it. We noted a soft amount of carbonation around the head.
The aromas come in with chocolate, coffee, roasted malts, black licorice and a milky, lactose like smell. A very intriguing smell as neither Father nor Son Beer Love has ever had a Milk Stout before this one. The tastes are true to all the aromas and also add smoke and cream to to the mix. When you sip the beer through the head you get more cream than milk in the taste for a nice effect. The smokiness comes through in the finish.
Our initial flavor notes come in with a moderate sweet and light bitter. The finish flavor notes move to a light sweet and moderate bitter and add a light saltiness. The finish duration is about average and the mouthfeel is nice and creamy. The tongue hit is in the middle of the tongue and there is no body lacing to speak of as we drink it. On our patented malt to hop scale it comes in very malty – 3 clicks to the left of balanced on the malty side (which is right where we like ’em).
For our bottom line notes we got a yes for everything but wow factor. Yes to drinkable, repeatable, balance, harmony, memorable and we would definitely buy it again.
The fact is folks we love this beer. It reminds us a lot of a cafe au lait (French for “coffee with milk”) and takes us back to our favorite place in the world – The Cafe Du Monde on Decatur Street in New Orleans. Tell me that a cafe au lait and a beignet (or 15) wouldn’t hit the spot now. This beer takes us there.
We might enjoy this beer really warm, say room temperature. Heck, we might even enjoy this beer hot. This is Son Beer Love’s third Duck Rabbit Milk Stout and he still loves it. Like we said folks, this is our first experience with any milk stout, so we’re not saying Duck Rabbit makes the best milk stout in the world – they may in fact all be this good. What we are telling you is that we’ll be buying milk stouts as quickly as we can find them in the near term future to put this to the test. If you can find the Duck Rabbit try it and let us know what you think about it compared to the other ones. And if you know of some good other ones (we’ve heard the Lancaster Milk Stout and the Left Hand Milk Stout are also great) please let us know. We’re not lactose intolerant and we’ll gladly try them on, you know, for science.
We recently vacationed down south, and as we passed a restaurant I saw some guy drinking Milk Stout. Having to always try a beer I’ve never heard of, I bought one. IT WAS WORTH IT. Delicious! The bartender told me, many people who drink Guiness think this is better. It’s not. But, it’s still a stout I will search out here in New Jersey. We have a liquor store with a huge creepy clown out front, that’s filled with imports and micro brewery beer. If they don’t have it, I’ll be sure to tell them about it.
The Duck-Rabbit Milk Stout is very good, but now try Samuel Adams Cream Stout and tell me what you think…
Walt
I just had it, compliments of you-know-who! I think that the Duck Rabbit Milk Stout is easily better than the Guinness Stout, and much more interesting.
I think the Lancaster Milk Stout is a touch better, but we’re splitting atoms at this point. Of the 3 domestic Milk Stouts I’ve had, I would rank the Lancaster best, closely followed by the Duck Rabbit and Keegan Ales. Really, you almost can’t go wrong with this style!
I am impressed.
I had been a big fan of Mackeson XXX for a few years until I went to Australia for 6 months then came back to find that my supply at the local Total Wine had dried up…ugh!
I made a game of asking a different employee each time why they no longer carry Mackeson and while I heard confilcting reports, the most common was that the brewery closed down and it’s gone for good…ugh again!
Nevermind that now, I believe that I’ve found a very suitable replacement, and it’s about 2/3 the price of Young’s or Left Hand.
The only thing I’ll add to the review was that the “soft amount of carbonation around the head” was a bit of an understatement in my opinion. Mine have seemed more like a Sprite off the pour, before calming down and acting their age.
I first encountered the Duck Rabbit Milk Stout at the Flying Saucer in Raleigh, NC (www.beerknurd.com). I always like to try the “local” beers so I figured this would be a good one to test. My favorite stout is Murphy’s (there’s a great story behind it). I set myself up with a tasting of five beers, making sure I had the Murphy’s and the Duck Rabbit. Murphy’s is a bit mild compared to Duck Rabbit and is a more “drinkable” stout. That being said, the Duck Rabbit really surprised me with it’s bold flavors. I got a bit of coffee, cocoa, smoke, and it was overall very satisfying.
On my way back to Virginia, I stopped by the local Total Wine and picked up two six packs. Very good.
I have found all of Duck Rabbits beers to be very good. The brewmaster down there in Farmville really knows his business. My girlfriend bought me some as a present and what a present. It is one of my favorite stouts.