Mmm i love milk stouts so very much. Beautifully dark with a nice creamy froth on top ( I'm trying to get better head on my pours lol, I think I have been too gentle) Thick toasty malt flavor. Sweet enuf to please me with the right amount of bitter at the end to make each sip a mini story. Not too heavy on the chocolate, which is fine with me . Just enuf to add dynamics to the flavor. Some beers just feel good when the are in your belly. This is one of them, nice and warm. I dig it.

I was very excited when I found out my local brewery was making a stout and was over the moon when I walked in yesterday and it had been released that morning. A week early. Woohoo. As with all my favourite styles, I can be a little picky. I love me some stout but it's gotta be done right. I can enjoy almost all offerings but to earn my notice it's has to be within my a expectations. I have no reason to assume my parameters are of any importance or matter to anyone, but I like what I like. Anyway. The first thing I noticed while dumping it into a glass was the color. Not black and not opaque. It was a dark rich red and only opaque when there is enough. It failed my flashlight test by easily being see through. This isn't within my set of check offs. It did create a nice thick puffy head that faded slowly and left a decent foam layer for the rest of the glass. Some nice cascading lace left behind all the way. It was time for the inhale. At first I was picking up the tang of hops right away and started to lose hope. That's not what I wanted to smell. I gave the glass a little swirl, continued the sniff and was relieved when a creamy chocolate appeared. Not far under that were some notes of dark chocolate, and gentle roast malt. There was a wee bit of coffee but very mild and not a prominent feature. Two out of three for my aroma judgement. I took a sip before I could form any preconceived biases. It flows softly on the tongue and starts off creamy and slightly sweet. A dark roast coffee was the next thing I noticed and it brought with it dark chocolate and a decent roast malt. It displayed some bitterness from the roast malts but also from the hops. The hops came across as floral and a little piney, but manifested in bitterness more than flavour. It ran silky but thin and was fairly light of body. I personally think it could have benefited from less hops and more lactose. I admitted I am a little harsh in judging my favorite styles and this one earned quite a few strike against, but.... It was good. Quite good. In fact it was good enough to have forced me to permanently broaden my parameters. The only criticism I'll give it is that in my opinion, it is closer to a dry Irish stout than a milk stout. In the end I enjoyed it and thought it was a well done beer. Thank you Red Arrow for stirring up my opinions and keeping me open minded.