Wild Beer Co: Millionaire (England: Sweet Stout: 4.7 % ABV)
Visual: Black. Thin gray brown head that does not last long.
Nose: Roasted nuts. Light smoke. Toffee. Shortbread.
Body: Molasses. Toffee. Light salt touch. Sour cream and chives. Coffee. Bitter cocoa powder. Peanut butter.
Finish: Bitter yet milky coffee. Salted caramel. Cocoa powder. Peanut butter. Lactose.
Conclusion: This tastes like what Yankee Sandwich wanted to be to me. Odd, as best I know it doesn’t actually have peanuts in, yet still has a decent punch of peanut like flavor mixed in with the stout base.
Even better this has the extras which Yankee Sandwich lacked, all those little elements to round out a beer – real sweet molasses like chocolate, a mix of other sweet notes and a salted touch to ground it. More so than the elements in the base of the beer, it works with the aroma to give a roasted and sour dough character which calls more to a more traditional stout, elements which will influence the rest of your experience with the beer. It takes a similar path as Yankee, but branches out more, revealing a more detailed pattern to enjoy.
It has more contrasting elements, more bitter chocolate, more salted character, some smoke – at no point to they become the main elements and so it is still a very sweet base. Very much the main points are the expected caramel, and the unexpected peanut butter, but the dark chocolate elements with that bitterness makes it more satisfying – leading to me pondering the idea that this is like peanut butter cups made with dark Belgian chocolate -a delicious heresy I’m sure you will agree.
So, overall a very satisfying beer. Polished, maybe not uber polished like some stouts, but with a unique take and complex enough, while coming in at a non insane abv. That makes it a very easy beer to recommend and I would say grab it if you can.
Background: Wild Beer Co are really turning out beers at a rate of knots at the moment, I am having a hard time keeping up with the bottled releases, let a one the multitude of keg and cask only releases. Anyway, this release is a sweet stout made with caramel, cocoa nibs, sea salt and lactose. Rate beer is currently listing it as a stout, but I think sweet stout is a better match. Drunk, again, while listening to Arch Enemy: War Eternal. This was grabbed, as ever, from independent spirit.
