Over the holidays I tried the first time release of Naragansett Autocrat Coffee Milk Stout.
Growing up near Rhode Island, I drank a fair amount of Autocrat Coffee Milk and still do, on occasion. Now Coffee Syrup is sweet and has just a slight hint of coffee taste to it. It lacks the burnt and smokey character that most coffee I've had contains*. But it also lacks the rich aroma that fresh ground coffee has.
Given that as my experience with Autocrat I was expecting a sweet malty beer with just a hint of coffee flavor.
The above is not what this beer is. Instead what I got was the distillation of that Autocrat Coffee Syrup's coffee flavor. It has a stronger bitter character with a slight coffee nose mellowed by the thickness I expect from a milk stout. Now, when I say this beer is bitter it isn't exceptionally strong but it is the bitter of unsweetened or mildly sweetened coffee.
While this beer isn't what I expected, that is because of my interactions with Autocrat Coffee Syrup, it is a good coffee milk stout. I've had it several times since the holidays and I'm still pleased with it. Some of that is novelty and some of it is that it is a good beer for the price. At the time of writing the beer has scored a respectable 85 on BeerAdvocate.
Overall it is a serviceable to good Coffee Milk Stout. It isn't the best in the world but it is also, around me, easily found and that matters, While I enjoy limited releases and beers that are hard to find I cannot spend that much time tracking down rare releases. But I think that might be a topic for another post.
*I'm not much of a coffee drinker and while I like the flavor in beer I'm not a conisure of the original drink. Come to think of it I don't really enjoy many, possibly any, hot liquids.
