Dragon's Milk Review

Dragon’s Milk has been one of my favorite beers since I started drinking. For the past decade, whenever I try a stout or porter at a brewery, I always compare it to Dragon’s Milk in my mind. Each and every time I remember Dragon’s milk tasting better. It is truly a fantastic beer. Rich, flavorful and comforting to the soul. It is a bit pricey at about 4$ per bottle, but it is 11% ABV. This is a one and done beer. So, when I buy it, I think about how I would probably drink two bottles of a 2$ brew and it all works out.

I recently decided to do a little experiment. I wanted to see if Dragon’s Milk could hold its own in the big leagues of beer. Down the street from my house is UnWined, a craft beer store with an eclectic selection. They had all sorts of coffee-based beers that I have never even heard of. I made it a point to try every bourbon barrel stout at least once. Some of these went as high as 24$ for a single bottle. They do have ABVs higher than red wines, so I guess that isn’t totally crazy if it is fairly large bottle. In doing this, I came up with three relatively simple criteria to assess this genre of beer.

 

The first is the most important. If it can’t do well in this regard then the rest of the criteria matter very little. Because these brews are made with coffee there is the potential for bitterness. When coffee is bitter, it is usually because something went wrong from the growing to the roasting to the extraction. Coffee has a lot of flavors to offer, but we want to get them out without the bitterness. So, whenever I try a bourbon barrel stout, I am immediately focused on any presence of bitterness. If there is more than a hint, I remember to not buy that beer again.

The next criterium I focus on is flavor. Nice notes of coffee usually make up the base of the flavor. But brewers try to get hints all sorts of things in these beers including chili peppers, caramel, bourbon, chocolate and more. There are many flavor notes that go well in this beer. It is important that flavor comes after the bitterness criteria. Even with a bold flavor profile, the bitterness will make it hard to enjoy. Even if these bourbon barrel stouts don’t have a bold flavor profile, they can still be very enjoyable.

The last criteria I look for is sweetness. Some of the top shelf stouts I tried at the craft beer store hit it out of the park with the first two criteria. They had no bitterness whatsoever and contained all flavors as advertised on the label. But they went overboard on the sweetness. You might even feel a little sick after drinking one because the excess sugar coupled with the heaviness of the beer doesn’t sit well. A touch of sweetness really goes a long way in these beers. But too much can ruin it.

So, what do I think of Dragon’s Milk? I told all of my friends that Dragon’s Milk beats all these 20$ + bourbon barrel stouts, but I may have overhyped it. My memory had a golden halo around it. I need to be honest with you. It is a really good beer that I will keep drinking and keep sharing with others. It just has a slight tinge of bitterness, but nothing even non-coffee drinkers could handle. The chocolate flavor is subtle. The most pronounced flavor is the whiskey from the barrels these beers get aged in. It doesn’t really have any sweetness though. I’d say Dragon’s Milk gets most things right. It is definitely has earned its place as a beer I come back to. But it is definitely not the upper echelon on how good bourbon barrel stouts can be. If you end up getting this beer, I recommend eating it with a slice of German Chocolate Cake. It cuts the tinge of bitterness and adds that little bit of sweetness Dragon’s Milk is missing for a superb experience.