SKA Steel Toe Stout (Milk Stout)

Brewed by SKA Brewing
Style: Sweet Stout
Durango, Colorado USA

Pours a thin black color from the bottle with a trim tan head. Smells and tastes of wood chips, mild hops, hazelnut, and bakers cocoa. Has a dry mouthfeel that lingers on the finish. Tastes like a smokey nut brown rather than a milk stout.

[Bottle] shared by Guerde. Pours a nearly opaque clear brown with a smallish tan head. Aroma is beef stew, roasted barley, lactose, and teriyaki sauce. Flavor matches with a medium mouthfeel and a dry finish.

12oz bottle notched the first week of May from Sparky27--thanks Eric! Clear deep brown with a small beige head, fading down to a ring and small island of foam in the middle of my glass before long. Milok chocolate and coffee up front in the aroma with a little bit of toffee. Nice. Flavor manages to keep the milk chocolate intact pretty well with the aforementioned coffee and some added roasty malts. The finish turns slightly wet cardboardish with some ashy char, and bitterness peaked around a 2. The finish was semi-dry. Low carbonation with a slightly watery body. Worth trying again at some point if it were on tap and nothing crazy were available. Overall, not too bad--though anything would taste good after the stupid t Smisje beer.

Bottled. Pours dark brown with a light brown head. Huge coffee aroma similar to folgers with cream. FLavor is very milky and creamy with strong coffee and some subtle chocolate notes. Tastes like a creamed coffee. Medium body with a moderately bitter finish.

Draught at GABF 2008. Black coloured with a meidum sized beige head. Roasted aroma of coffee, caramel and chocolate. Roasted flavour of coffee with notes of chocolate and caramel. Roasted finish.

Pours with no carbonation, no head whatsoever. Sweet stout and roast aromas. Taste is very average for a stout. Not much milk stout quality. The milk stout flavor is all back-of-the-palate, which is sort of disappointing.

12 oz. bottle from Plaza Liquors - Pours a dark brown color with a one finger thick light tan head. Light spotty lacing. Aroma is roasted malt, coffee, lactose, and chocolate. Flavor is roasted malt, lactose, and chocolate. Light to medium body. A decent beer.

I like a brew that purports to be tough and strong; a beer that can be manly enough for the blue collar worker, but sweet enough to satisfy his suppressed appetite for sugar. And apparently that’s the demographic that the Steel Toe stout is aimed at. The pour is slow and oily like the Exxon-Valdez spill, floating up a medium brown and fuzzy head that’s a few millimetes shy of capping the whole surface area of the brew. The aroma has the summer scent of fresh leafy produce, like spinach, with the added bitterness of fresh coffee beans. A marginal scent of raspberry, and the heavy smell of heavy cream gives this a predictable sweet touch. Out of this aroma I also catch a puff of candy corn - a staple to any American child celebrating Halloween, but I also get a heavy metallic element in the aroma that makes the Steel Toe a bit off-putting. The flavor is a dark maw of malts, chocolate and a semi-sweet balance, but seems flat and deflated. It is a nice respite from bitter stouts, though. Also, like in the aroma, I stumble on a chemical and metal flavor that is unpleasant and sticks around your throat like a thorn until the aftertaste. Still, this does nothing to malign the beer’s sugary intent, especially as it is still housed in your mouth. Dry fruits and a lactic sweetness give the tongue a sugary coating that is a nice substitute for dessert, but these industrial flavors are just too much for me.