Coffee End of Days - Pipeworks Brewing Company

    The end of days are upon us. First came the beginning of the End of Days with its cacao nibs, vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, and ancho chilies. Many fell in the first few hours. Those who survived saw the End of Days transform into Imperial End of Days with even more of everything that made the End of Days so powerful. Now, there aren't many of us left. Very few of us even bother getting out of bed anymore, and those who do require a strong dose of morning coffee to get started trying to rebuild. Recent news tells of another coming of the End of Days, and this time it's turning our very reason for getting out of bed in the mornings against us. We are preparing - struggling to piece together supplies and weapons. Even with these preparations, I don't think we can survive the Coffee End of Days. Farewell.

    Coffee End of Days is a Milk Stout created by Pipeworks Brewing Company in Chicago, Illinois. This is the third rendition of their End of Days Milk Stout, and it builds on the previous release, Imperial End of Days, by adding coffee to the already delicious Mexican hot chocolate inspired brew.

    Coffee End of Days pours a deep onyx that is as black as the void from which it fell to earth. The beer's head quickly dissipates into a tan ring around the edge of the glass. The foam leaves little to no lacing.

People said they could smell it as soon as they woke up.
They knew that today might be their last.

    The Milk Stout smells nicely sweet, with an obvious scent of chilies punching you in the nose soon after. Coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, and vanilla scents follow the spicy assault of the chilies. Honestly, the scent seems kind of muddled though. While I can work to experience each of these notes in the beer's aroma, without concentrating they all kind of mix together. It's almost like a band in which every member plays their own instrument as loud as they possibly can to the point that it all just become noise without really working to hear each part.

    The beer is full bodied, with a much tinglier level of carbonation than I had expected. The carbonation almost propels the chili spice up into my nose and stings it. The beer finishes extremely smooth and warm. I'm not sure if it's completely the chilies giving the warmth or if the brew's 10.5% ABV alcohol content is helping that along.

    The flavor of Coffee End of Days is quite layered. At first, the beer tastes smooth and sweet with cocoa and vanilla. The flavor then transforms into a bitter and roasty coffee flavor with hints of cinnamon. Finally, you'll notice a slow burn in the back of your throat from the ancho chilies. Personally, I love a little chili heat, but I know that some people are more sensitive to it than others. I will say that the strength of the chilies in this brew surprised me. I actually thought it was pretty warm, which pleasantly surprised me, but I could see others really being burned by the beer. To me, the best part of the beer was building up that chili burn, then taking another smooth sweet sip to mellow the heat and then do it all over again.

    I thought Coffee End of Days was extremely tasty. I was a little disappointed by the coffee part of the beer though. With it being a part of the beer's name, I really expected it to be a bit more pronounced in the brew's flavor. As it is, the coffee was a nice partner to the other strong flavors in the beer, but it doesn't become the star of the show as I was thinking it might. I have a feeling that Pipeworks will bring the End of Days back around again, but for now, I'm just glad I've survived one more round!

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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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Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro Bottle - Left Hand Brewing Company

    Left Hand Milk Stout is made by Left Hand Brewing Company located in Longmont, Colorado. An entire case of this special version of the Left Hand Milk Stout was brought back to Indiana by some good friends of mine after holiday break.

    I usually don't spend more than one or two sentences on how a beer pours, but this Stout is special. Unlike most canned or bottled nitro pour beers, this bottle has no weird plastic widget or wand inside to assist in the smooth pouring of the liquid from the bottle. Instead, to quote my good friend, you "pour it like a three-year-old" into a glass and it pours perfectly. I have heard that Left Hand Brewing Company will not divulge any information as to how they manage to make the beer pour so well without a widget. I'd try to find it out myself, but I'm afraid that if they told me, they'd have to kill me. Either that, or force me to bottle all their beer by hand (any homebrewer knows this punishment would be a fate worse than death.)

     After a rough pour, the beer begins to cascade beautifully. The nitrogen bubbles slowly collect at the top of the glass to form a creamy tan head that is incredibly dense. This has to be the coolest pour of a beer that I have seen so far, hence the video.

 

Try pouring any other beer like this and you'll have a major mess to clean up...

   Once I stopped watching the beer cascade and prepared to drink it I found that the Milk Stout smells chocolatey with a good bit of coffee roasted malt scent. There is a slightly sweet aroma to the beer as well.

    The first flavors to hit the tongue are sweet and lightly coffee-like. I was not surprised by this mix of flavors after smelling the Stout. There is only the slightest bit of bitterness in the beer. The lactose sweetness sticks around after swallowing the beer, making sure what bitterness there is does not stick around as an after-taste.

    At 6% ABV, I expected there to be at least a little bit of alcohol warmth to the beer, but no warmth nor alcohol taste is perceptible. The tiny nitrogen bubbles used to carbonate this beer make it such a smooth and creamy experience. After experiencing the nitro-pour version of this beer I'm afraid I could never try the CO2 carbonated version again.

    Overall I would say that the Left Hand Milk Stout is a great example of the style of beer that it represents. I tend to be turned off by Stouts that taste too much like coffee, but this Stout comes out just right. I have had the non-nitro version of the beer and while it is still good, the nitro-pour makes this beer so much better.

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Special Thanks to Drew and Whitney Sayer for bringing me a case of Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro Pour from Colorado!