‘Crazy Cow’ a sweet stout

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/04/2017 (3263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It sure may not feel like spring yet, but beer festival season is almost here.

Flatlanders Beer Festival is taking place in Winnipeg on June 9 and 10. Seeing that last year’s edition of the festival was their best year yet with a sneak peek of a bunch of (then)

up-and-coming breweries, we will likely see another sneak peek of what to expect from up and coming breweries such as One Great City and Brasserie Nonsuch. Half Pints is hosting an event on June 8 to promote their Wild Rice and Honey beer for which they collaborated with Central City Brewing — from with Surrey, B.C. — as part of Canada’s 150 celebrations.

Montreal’s Mondial de la bière festival is taking place only a few days later in downtown Montreal and it looks like I’ll likely be going back for a second year in a row. The festival hasn’t announced what sort of events are taking part, yet nor what breweries will be taking part, but, like Flatlanders, it will be a great way to check out what new breweries have popped up.

Lately, I’ve been mostly drinking sweet, tropical IPAs like Collective Arts’ Ransack the Universe. I absolutely love where IPAs have gone recently, but sometimes you drink so much of a style that you need to lay off it for a while.

While making my regular visit to the Corral Centre Liquor Mart, I was simply trying to think of an interesting beer to try. It can be tough to pick out a beer, especially at a location like the Corral Centre where they can only carry so many different kinds, but one popped out at me immediately, reminding me that I’ve never reviewed it for The Sun before — only briefly mentioning it in my Jan. 27 column discussing the best beers I’ve ever reviewed.

Microbrasserie Charlevoix, out of Baie-Saint-Paul, Que., makes one of my favourite stouts in the world — La Vache Folle (The Crazy Cow), and while it has been available in Manitoba two times in the past, usually it sells out before I get a chance to critique it for you.

Charlevoix’s La Vache Folle is an Imperial Milk Stout that tops out at a whopping nine per cent ABV. I find that milk stouts aren’t that common in can or bottle form in Manitoba, but it’s a style that I seem to find more at brewery tasting rooms than anywhere else.

La Vache Folle pours a thick, black-as-night body with a bit of a brown cola hue to it and a lightly frothy yet yellow-brown cookie dough head on top. The aroma is pretty sharp as I’m getting notes of roasted coffee, a bit of heavy cream, creamy milk chocolate, a light amount of nuttiness and a light sour note at the end that I just can’t describe. La Vache Folle is going to be a good deal sweeter and creamier than a Guinness or a Stir Stick Stout for the fact that they add milk to the brew, so it’s not vegan friendly. As I’m tasting La Vache Folle, the very first thing I notice is the sweetness of the stout — it’s very sweet, almost like an iced mocha. There are flavours of roasted malt that give it the typical roasted coffee flavour most of us know and love in great stouts, a bit of milk chocolate, an undeniable presence of some sort of dairy product that gives it a real rich, creamy feel in your mouth, as well as a hit of cream flavour.

What I keep forgetting about this beer is that it’s nine per cent ABV, so the 500 ml bottle will give you a bit of a buzz if you drink the entire bottle yourself.

Compared to most stouts on the market, La Vache Folle is quite a bit higher in alcohol content; most stouts are usually between four and six per cent ABV. Also, I find most Imperial Stouts are barrel-aged, so seeing a stout that’s showing itself off without the help of oak and rum or bourbon is a big plus. The stout is creamy, incredibly sweet and creamy, but also packs a rich coffee bite in every sniff-n-sip.

Liquor Marts’ website doesn’t currently have information about the product, but it is available at Corral Centre and Victoria Avenue locations in Brandon, as well as in Portage la Prairie, and possibly at other Liquor Marts throughout the area. $5.94 per 500 ml bottle.

4.5/5 pints