But i haven't, in fact its my first Imperial Stout. This blog grew out of the photos and brief notes i'd been adding to my Flickr stream, which was to chronicle all the new beers i was trying. And trying beers like this one was of my aims, styles that were new to me, styles i had thought i would never like.
So this Imperial Stout stuff, i'm not going to go into its history, probably you know it and if you dont then start here and then best to search zythophile or Barclay Perkins for true beer history and fact. Trust me, hours will pass before you know it on these 2 sites!
Cue picture:
This has a lovely coffee cream aroma to it, and its colour is pretty black, coca cola black when you get further down and hold to the light. As you see a good cocoa powder brown head.
At this point my wife reminded me to put the bins out, so a couple of slurps and i was down the garden. As i avoided the dog shit in the back lane that some selfish bastard had left i noticed the constant warming, almost burning, still hitting my lower oesophagus. But this contrasts with only a little alcohol in the mouth.
It has some deep malts in there, and something is sitting on side of my tongue. I forget my tongue map so not sure what that might be, or did i read that tongue maps were wrong all this time? Must follow that one up.
It has perfect carbonation, and the little gas i do let escape gives me liquorice burps. As it warms you also get sweet chocolate and some hop bitterness.
Excellent beer.
A great write-up!
ReplyDeleteBefore I was 'The Baron' I'd not had an imperial stout and now I've had a few but I've not tried this one yet. It sounds really nice so I'll keep my eye out for it.
What ABV is it?
Your first Imperial stout? - A perfect one to start with! It's a brilliant example of the style to be fair - not as massive as most of the ones being produced today. I.S. is my favorite kind of beer but this is one I'd happily drink again and again.
ReplyDeleteImperial Stouts tend to come and go with me. There are a lot of them out there now (at least over here in the States). They tend to be very high in alcohol as well. I stopped drinking them as they all started to taste the same to me. Then I had a Founders Imperial Stout a few months ago and was blown away. There are some great ones for sure out there. And I am betting Sam Smith makes a good one (and at 7% abv from what I see, that looks nice). I need to drink more Sam Smith. Your posts are making me realize that real quick.
ReplyDeleteyes i've seen a few reviews of some pretty big IS's, huge abv's and flavours, i'm up for that so the Sam smith was probably a good starting point!
ReplyDeleteBaron - thanks, and yes its 7%.
Barroom - you cant go wrong with Sam Smith i'm starting to think, the Oatmeal stout is brilliant though, go for that.