Beaver's Milk Nitro by Belching Beaver Brewery was evaluated as a Sweet Stout (2015 Beer Judge Certification Program Category 16A) according to the BJCP guidelines.
The beer comes to me in a soft shouldered Guinness-style glass poured to perfection: a 3/4ths inch thick créma of mocha-colored foam, with that unmistakably super-fine texture from Nitrogen, floating on a sea of ruby-black liquid. It is nearly opaque, and looks stoutish!
The aroma has a big and rich chocolate front, with cocoa, milk, and medium-dark roast coffee complimenting themselves above a slightly sweet backdrop. Fantastic roast malt flavors paired with a milky sweetness makes the aroma spot on for what it aspires to. Creamy and inviting.
The flavor is big, lush and sweet right out of the gate, with flavors of milk chocolate, dark chocolate and light-biscuit-caramel malt notes. The mid-palate bitterness is restrained and modest as it should be, and while it hits with a quick herbal note, it gets washed away in the middle and late palate by the long sweet finish that actually dries out a little in the aftertaste. The roast/chocolate malt and the apparent lactose really compliment each other and the malt/roast material flavors are really outstanding --I'm guessing UK malts. While the beer's flavor profile shines with cocoa/chocolate and lactose flavors, the beers Nitrogen-influenced texture -and relatively thin body add an additional creaminess to the beer giving it both a lush and refreshingly quick finish. That is, the sweetness is very much there, but in no way cloying, and that gives a lot of credit to a beer that balances hard to the sweet. In sum, this is a fine sweet stout with great English pedigree, that is not cloying and shouldn't be considered a dessert beer, but rather a nice roasty-sweet beer to be enjoyed by the pint. Speaking of pints, as far as pub-fare that I'd pair: corned beef with hot mustard on Jewish Rye sounds spot on. Lets see what I have in the larder...