Beer Review: Left Hand Milk Stout

It’s been quite some time since I posted one of these reviews.  It hasn’t been a long time since I’ve had beer–I just haven’t had occasion to try many new ones lately.  Nonetheless, here goes.

I picked up Left Hand Milk Stout over the New Year’s break with the expectation (stupidly) that it was probably going to taste like chocolate milk.  I don’t know where I get this shit from.  The six-pack said “Stout” on it, but it also said “Milk,” which makes my head think, “Oh, this is going to taste just like the chocolate milk I used to drink at lunch in grade school.”

I’m so retarded.

I cracked open the first bottle and took a swig–I know that drinking it out of the bottle is wrong, chumps, but I did it anyhow–and while it didn’t taste like the chocolate milk the back end of my brain expected brown cow juice, I got something just as good.  Left Hand Milk Stout, it turns out, is a very good beer.  If you’re into stouts, or learning about beers, I’d definitely recommend this–it’s definitely a stout, so that dark, roasted malt flavor is definitely prevalent, but what harshness there could be in the beer is mellowed by the creaminess of the milk elements of the beer.  Which is not to say that it’’s outright creamy–it’s more of a subtle texture than the half-milk, half-beer concoction you might think it is.

Not that there’d be anything wrong with that.  In fact, I wonder… Never mind.

Anyhow, this milk stout’s solid and definitely carries the “roasted” flavor you expect of a stout, and the milk sugars added during the brewing process provides a specific sweetness that would likely appeal to most folks.  It’s not too overwhelmingly alcoholic at 5.3% ABV, and it’s definitely something you’ll want to have more than one of.  On the grand TCM “Crap to Superb” scale, Left Hand Milk Stout Scores a “Pretty Great.”  You can probably find it at most finer beer purveyors.

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