Of course Starbucks is testing a beer-flavored latte

Great news, seasonal-coffee-beverage lovers: the beer-flavored latte has arrived.

Now before you gag, the Bud Light Latte is nowhere on the horizon. However, the Dark Barrel Latte has arrived for a test run in Starbucks stores around the country, and it is designed to taste like stout.

Reddit user so_oakland posted a photo of Starbucks promotional material explaining the drink to workers, as Buzzfeed reported.

Source: Reddit user so_oakland

Among the important points: "stout flavor" tastes like "roasted malt flavor." Of course, this being Starbucks, caramel and chocolate are also involved, as well as a whipped cream topping. And in case you were wondering, the drink does not contain any beer.

The drink is Starbucks' attempt to capitalize on the rise of craft beer. But as with other seasonal beverages, it will also be an attempt to capitalize upon customers' willingness to line up for sweet seasonal coffee drinks. The DBL (as it will almost certainly be called, in PSL fashion) will be sold alongside the Pumpkin Spice Latte and the Oprah Chai Latte. As my colleague Alex Abad-Santos wrote recently, the main point of a seasonal drink is to get customers to eagerly line up each year for it — to create artificial pent-up demand.

So it may be a shrewd way to get even more latte-crazy customers each year. Or just maybe the search is on for the Pumpkin Spice Latte successor, now that PSL backlash is in full swing.

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