Brewed By: Revolution Brewing Company (Revolution Beer LLC) in Chicago, IL
Purchased: 22oz bottle bought at in Binny's in IL; 2012
Style/ABV: Milk Stout, 7.9%
Keeping with the Chicago and winter theme, I decided to crack open Revolution's Mad Cow. The Mad Cow is a big Sweet Stout/Milk Stout, clocking in at 7.9%. Technically, the big ABV probably pushes this beyond your typical Sweet Stout styling, but who cares.
Revolution Brewing is a brewery and brewpub based in Chicago. Revolution's roots are tied to founder Josh Deth, a homebrewer who began working at Golden Prairie Brewing. A few years later, while working at Goose Island, Josh dreamt up the idea for Revolution Brewing. In 2003, Josh and his wife opened Handlebar, while Josh worked as an Executive Director of Logan Square Chamber of Commerce. While working for the Chamber of Commerce, Josh found an old building on Milwaukee Avenue, and the wheels began to spin to open up a brewery. After three years of raising funds, Revolution Brewing opened its doors on February 2010. In July of 2011, Revolution added a 2nd floor Brewers' Lounge. And in 2012, the company opened a new production brewery and tap room. The brewpub is located in Logan Squre on 2323 N. Milwaukee Ave; the brewery is located on Kedzie Avenue at 3340 N. Kedzie Ave. For more information on Revolution, check out their history page here!
If you roll over to Revolution's Mad Cow page, you can get some basic info on this beer. The Mad Cow is described as a "Smooth, charcoal black stout made with lactose for a lingering sweetness." Clocking in at 7.9% ABV (my bottle says 7.9%, the website says 7.7%; my guess is the recipe has been tweaked!), this beer packs 30 IBUs. Let's glass this up and see what we got.
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| Revolution Mad Cow Milk Stout |
In low light, this beer pours a dark brown/light black color, with 2-fingers of fairly thick/root beer float/bready head. The head has a sandy/grey/tan color. As the head drops off, you get some nice lacing. In bright light, I'm getting a lot of brown on the edges, and I see a lot of carbonation in the form of tiny bubbles. Swirling this leaves tons of lacing, with dynamite head retention, and some cauldron-esque bubbles atop the beer.
The nose on this is nice, with lots of roast, caramelized sugar, lightly caramelized marshmallow, hot cocoa, cocoa powder, that milk powder shit you put into your coffee when you don't have real cream, hints of coffee, lactose, and really elusive chocolate. The nose hits the style well.
This is carbonated and slightly thin initially, with caramelized sweetness up front manifesting as elusive dark fruits. This has surprisingly good palate duration for the style, as the mid palate rolls into roast, and the back end hits big lactose/cream/coffee notes. I can't help but use Bells' Special Double Cream Stout (an awesome beer) as the framework for this style, and Revolution can compete. I'm getting caramelized sugar, hints of cherries, cappuccino, coffee, lactose, hints of cocoa (more so than chocolate), cream, and lots of roast. Some vanilla flairs up as a pleasant astringency as the roast hits some light bitterness and plays off the lactose.
7.9% ABV is nothing to scoff at, but this is drinkable (as long as you don't object to lactose or this style of Stout). This is somewhere between a Dry Stout and a Russian Imperial Stout. This is roasty, but doesn't have any burnt or charred malts. It's complex...but it doesn't push any extremes. Except for the ABV, maybe. 7.9% will creep up on you. This is medium-light to medium in terms of mouthfeel; this is smooth, roasty, and supported by light carbonation. The finish is roasty and lactose. Palate depth is great, and complexity is high. Up front is carbonation, a blast of coffee, caramelized sugar, and cherries; the middle hits the roast, cocoa, lactose, creamer; the back end is lactose, coffee, cappuccino; slightly sticky lactose-roast finish.
Rating: Above-Average
I'm feeling a Light Above-Average on this. This is a really nice Milk/Sweet Stout, and that's all you need to know. I think bombers of this are around 7-10 bucks, so as a local option, I can dig this. What I really like about this beer is the big roasty complexity, the really nice carmelized sugar notes, and the palate depth. This starts out a bit thin, but transitions into a bigger beer across the palate. I never know what to pair with Milk Stouts...I'd do some cheesy potatoes, or a beef stew, or Goulash or something. You could certainly go the dessert route too.
Random Thought: I have a bottle of the "Very Mad Cow," which is the barrel-aged version of this beer. I'm looking forward to trying it...and seeing if the added complexity from the barrel can elevate this beer into something truly mind blowing.
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