Ubu Ale - Lake Placid Craft Brewing Company

    Ubu Ale, supposedly named after a legendary dog in the Lake Placid area, is an English Strong Ale created by the Lake Placid Craft Brewing Company located in Lake Placid, New York. According to the legend (conveniently printed on the beer's label), Ubu was a gigantic chocolate lab who had a special ability of sniffing out great beer. I can see how a dog like that would be large, doggy beer belly and all.

    Ubu Ale pours ruby-tinted brown with a finger or two of white head on top.

    The ale smells very sweet, almost like a Barleywine. There is an almost acidic, sharp smell to the ale as well.

    Ubu is mid to full bodied with a medium level of carbonation. The beer has a pretty significant mouthfeel.



    Ubu Ale hits the mouth first with a bitterness that is somewhat citrusy. Strong malt flavors follow, bringing to mind dark chocolate and coffee. The sweet flavors end with more bitterness. The aftertaste is almost metallic, which is as unpleasant as it sounds. At 7% ABV, the alcohol presence is definitely noticeable, especially in the aftertaste. A slight warmth from the alcohol is present in both the mouth and stomach.

    Personally, I don't really want to meet the dog that inspired this ale. The beer is fine and all, but a dog with these qualities wouldn't exactly be man's best friend. The chocolatey malts definitely could be inspired by a chocolate lab, but the bitterness in the beer makes me think that the dog might be more likely to bite than play. Add to the bitter demeanor of the dog the fact that he likes to drink good beer, and you've got a big, beer stealing monster. Not to mention Ubu would likely be drunk all the time, peeing wherever he wanted.

    Overall, Ubu Ale lives up to its name as a Strong Ale. I find the early and after bitterness in the ale to be offputting, though the sweet malt flavors in the middle are quite nice. I wish that the malts would minimize the bitterness in the aftertaste more than they do though.

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Nippletop - Lake Placid Craft Brewing Company

    Nippletop Milk Stout is made by Lake Placid Craft Brewing Company located in Lake Placid, New York. I received this beer as part of a craft beer club shipment. Lake Placid states that this is the sweetest Stout that they brew, citing the lactose used in the brewing process as the source of the sweetness. The inclusion of lactose is also the reason that this style of beer is known as a Milk Stout.

    The Stout smells slightly sweet with notes of coffee and roasted malts. There is also a slight bitterness to the smell.

    The beer pours a dark coffee color with a finger of khaki head that dissipates relatively quickly.

    Nippletop is much thinner bodied than I would have expected from a Stout. It is also contains a much higher level of carbonation than I would have liked.

Not recommend for children under 21.

    The Milk Stout has definite notes of coffee and chocolate in its flavor. There is only a very slight lactose sweetness which is surprising and somewhat disappointing. Roasty malt flavors hold up the back-end of the Stout. There is a surprisingly pronounced bitterness to the beer which I find extremely unpleasant. The lactose leaves a slight film in my mouth after swallowing the beer.

    At 4.9% ABV, Nippletop falls on the far-low end of the alcohol content spectrum when it comes to Stouts. There is absolutely no trace of an alcohol flavor in the beer.

    To be honest, the name of this beer weirds me out a bit. I get the joke with the beer being a Milk Stout and all, but still, what do they expect? My overactive imagination just takes things way too far ending up somewhere that nobody wants to be, let alone anything that anyone would ever want to drink.

    Overall, strange name aside, Nippletop is a pretty mediocre Milk Stout. With some flavors actually coming across as unpleasant as well as a carbonation level that is much too high for this style of beer, Nippletop ranks medium-low on my list of beers that I would choose to drink regularly.

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