Eating isn't Cheating: Imperial Stout

Showing posts with label Imperial Stout. Show all posts

Buxton Brewery Tsar Imperial Stout 9.5%

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Monday, September 12, 2011

I've been away for the weekend and not had a chance to get this review up, despite it being a top beer that I'm pretty sure should be hitting good beer shops near you very soon. It's a 9.5% Imperial Stout from the consistently good Buxton Brewery, and is something of a shift in focus from a brewery which has made it's name with a range of top quality, traditional British style beers and bottles which really do taste like Cask Ale.

It pours a slick, thick black with a brown bubble head that fades to a thin veil of foam. Absolutely zero light getting through this one. What the hell is it made out of, black hole?

The smell is nicely roasted with a definate rich coffee edge, also a little bit of herbal hop coming through. A faint touch of chocolate but its subtle compared to the roasted coffee aroma. It smells great.

The mouthfeel is the first thing that hits you, this is seriously thick. Then you get lots of nice dry roasted malt flavour, a definate smokeyness and also a bit of dark melted chocolate. This beer also has a really nice dry hop finish which it needs with that big mouthfeel. One thing i've talked about many time before and which I love in imperial stouts is when you get that just-after-an-espresso dry mouth flavour and feeling in the swallow. Basically the hops and dark malts combine to create this great flavour.

It's got a really great balance between dark chocolate and more smokey, dark roasted flavours, all wrapped up in a really big thick body then dried out totally in the finish with the hops that are ever so slightly orangey and spiced. The aftertaste is similar to a really dark high quality chocolate and reminded me a lot of the Maya Gold Orange and spice Chocolate that Green & Blacks make - That kind of bittersweet fruity dryness.

...and do you know what, I almost forgot to talk about this because it goes by compoletely unnoticed. The booze is hidden like a bloody ninja. This doesnt have any alcohol flavour at all. I mean, the beer itself tastes BIG but that booze is masked by a massive amount of roasted malt flavour, and dry hops in the finish, which stop the alcohol coming through.

Take your time with this beer and you'll get a lot out of it. Another swing and a hit from Buxton Brewery!

Nogne o

Black Tokyo* Horizon - BrewDog, Nøgne Ø, and Mikkeller's collaboration Imperial Stout

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Friday, August 12, 2011

Black Tokyo* Horizon is the result of a collaboration between three of the most exciting and innovative craft beer brewers in Europe; Brewdog, Nøgne Ø and Mikkeller, all of which have built a reputation for brewing bold and sometimes extreme beers with huge amounts of hops, higher ABV’s, and more weird and wonderful ingredients than any other brewers. They are, without a doubt, the beer geek brewers.

So what happens when you put these lot in a brewery together? Well, as you might have guessed, they’ve taken the saying “go big or go home” to a new extreme and produced a beer which almost buckles under its own weight - another kilo of malt and this might just have been too much, but as it stands, they’ve created something really quite special.

The recipe for the beer is a fusion of each brewery’s flagship Imperial Stout; Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon, BrewDog Tokyo*, and Mikkeller Black, with massive amounts of flavour, strength and a formidable ABV of 17.2%.

Enough foreplay, what’s the beer like?

Black Tokyo* Horizon pours a completely and utterly impenetrable black, zero light coming through, with just the faintest tint of dark brown near the edges. A brown cola bubble head quickly disappears and leaves very little trace apart from a few tiny bubbles near the edges, not unexpected for a beer of this strength.

This beer initially smells quite savoury, with a of sort soy sauce aroma, before the reduced, bitter chocolate syrup and herbal gin-like alcohol comes through alongside a faint redcurrant fruitiness.

A moment of hesitation before the first sip; how big is this going to be?

The taste is initially dominated by sweet, dark brown sugar but then you get a really big surge of warmth from the alcohol and a smack of that syrupy dark chocolate hinted at in the aroma. In the middle flavour you get chocolate coated bitter coffee beans, black cherry, dried cranberry, chocolate toffee and intensely reduced redcurrant jam. The finish is sweet, boozy, and chocolaty with an intense fruitiness and just a hint of aromatic dryness and a herbal smokiness – a bit like burnt rosemary twigs.

The mouth feel is extremely thick, slick and syrupy with low carbonation and a definite chewy quality. Just a touch of alcohol burn greets you in the swallow but mainly there’s just a furry warmth to the whole thing which adds to the intensity of the flavours.

It really delivers on what I was hoping for; intense in every way, with big aroma, massive depth of flavour, and a mouth feel like crude oil.

Be warned though, this is a huge beer. It's almost liqueur like in its intensity, and the thick and syrupy body combined with the big sweetness, alcohol warmth and intense chocolate and fruit flavours make it pretty heavy going. But take your time, give it a chance to warm up in the glass and breathe a bit, and Black Tokyo* Horizon will reward you with a depth and intensity of flavour which is seldom found in a beer.

It’s undoubtedly a bit of an effort, but for me personally, it's an ultimately satisfying and rewarding one.

You can buy Black Tokyo* Horizon online at the BrewDog shop. My recommendation would be to buy two - one to drink now, perhaps shared with a few friends, and one to lay down for drinking in a year or so’s time.

Big, high strength Imperial Stouts like this keep very well and will change and mature for years, so are perfect for ageing. I’ve written before about the importance of drinking pale, hoppy beers fresh, but Black Tokyo* Horizon is completely the other end of the spectrum, and can only get better with time.

Massive thanks to James from BrewDog for sending this through for review.

Imperial Stout

BrewDog AB:06 Imperial Black IPA

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Thursday, August 04, 2011

The Abstrakt range from BrewDog fills a gap in the market for beers which have been pushed to the limits of decency, taken to the extremes of a style and brewed with more hops, more diverse malts, higher ABV’s and more unusual flavours than anything else available in the UK.

That said, I hasten to use the term ‘extreme beers’ as that implies something which has been pushed too far, and I don’t think that’s what the Abstrakt range represents. These beers have been taken to the outer limits of their particular styles but aren’t some sort of super hot chilli that’s just there to be eaten for a dare, they are there to be enjoyed for what they are - very good beers.

AB:06, the sixth and final beer in BrewDog’s most recent Abstrakt range, is an 11.2% Triple Dry Hopped Imperial Black IPA which, as with all of the Abstrakt beers, is bottle conditioned and presented in a swanky corked and caged dark green bottle. BrewDog recommend you drink one bottle fresh and keep one for a year or two so you can see how the beer changes with ageing – which is exactly what I’ll be doing.

BrewDog AB:06 Imperial Black IPA 11.2%

AB:06 Pours a dark hazy brown from the bottle but once in the glass appears a slick almost impenetrable black with a slightly hazy unfiltered look to it and a small beige head which quickly dissolves to a small ring, as you’d expect at this ABV.

The smell is really powerful with sticky, resinous hop oils, bitter grapefruit and rich chocolate pudding, as well as a sweet and very reduced boozy mincemeat undercurrent which reminds me of a big barley wine.

In the taste there’s initially loads of thick, bitter dark chocolate and hints of citrus fruit - like a rich chocolate pot with a blast of orangey boozyness. That chocolate malt dominates but you also get a slight roasted filter coffee flavour before everything is completely bowled over by massive hop bitterness and flavours of orange syrup, dried apricot, grapefruit, pine resin, and a kind of dried mango herbal quality. After the whack of hops and sweet booze you get just a hint of alcohol burn that disappears before you really notice it, and an aftertaste of bitter dark chocolate and resinous hops.

As the beer warmed up (this is after all a beer to be sipped and enjoyed over an hour or so) I got more hardcandy sweetness and a fruity, barleywine like richness.

Imagine a strong, chocolatey imperial stout brewed with an insane dry hopping schedule, and you’re not far off the mark.

Big thanks to James from BrewDog for sending this through for a review. AB:06 is currently out of stock on the BrewDog website but you can join the Abstrakt Addicts Club online at the BrewDog store which ensures you get the beers before anybody else. Alternatively Beer Ritz in Leeds still has some in stock.

Lion Stout

Foreign/Export Stouts: How Guinness helped create a truly unique style of beer

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Whilst Arthur Guinness didn’t invent ‘Stout’ he is the brewer that made it famous around the World. Over 200 years ago Guinness produced a number of different stouts, including a version which was specifically designed for foreign export. This stout was brewed strong, with a high ABV (the modern version is 7.5%), and hopped heavily, which helped it survive the long sea journey to foreign countries, much in the same way India Pale Ale (IPA) was.

The beer was originally known as “Foreign Stout” but can now be found branded as “Foreign Extra Stout” or simply “Guinness FES” for short - not to be confused with “Guinness Special Export Stout” which was produced for the Belgian market much later in 1930.

Surprisingly, for a relatively high ABV, strong, dark beer, this “Foreign Stout” proved so popular in hotter/tropical countries such as Jamaica and Nigeria that breweries were built by Guinness to produce the beer locally alongside the bottles that were being imported. However, the raw ingredients such as barley which are needed to produce Guinness are difficult to grow in these countries and as such a solution was needed. What the Irish brewery did was to produce a wort with barley malt and roasted barley, hop it heavily and then dehydrate the mixture to a syrup ready for export. In the case of the Nigerian version this mixture would then be mixed with a local beer made from Sorghum and fermented at the brewery in Nigeria.

Now I’ll admit this doesn’t sound like the most appealing or natural way to produce a great beer but trust me, something magic happens during the slightly Frankensteinesque brewing process which creates a truly unique and intriguing style of stout.

The Nigerian version of Guinness FES has a really unusual fruity aroma of blackcurrant, strawberry, banana and raisin and a slightly sweeter malt richness with less of a roasted/chocolate character, as well as a satisfying hop bitterness. It also has a slightly lambic sour quality which I’d assume comes from the blending of the older dehydrated beer. It’s a stunning stout which I personally slightly prefer over the version of "Foreign Extra Stout" brewed by Guinness in Ireland. The bottles look almost identical but the Nigerian one has a red ‘Imported’ tab on the front label, and obviously says brewed in Nigeria on the back!

Of course, as with any great beer, "Foreign Extra Stout" inspired other brewers to produce something with similar characteristics, and it is the brewing of these stouts which gave rise to a new beer style in its own right - now referred to simply as “Foreign Stout” or “Export Stout”. The characteristics of the style are an ABV of around 6-9%, a slightly fruitier, often sweeter flavour, which rides alongside the big flavours of roasted malt and bitter, herbal hops. Despite the historical parallels with Imperial Stouts, “Export Stouts” are very different, often having much less of a chocolate/coffee flavour and in some ways a more challenging, unusually sweet/sour character, which is all of its own.

The thing is, whilst the “Foreign Extra Stout” brewed by these tropical Guinness breweries are arguably the first “Export Stouts” within this style, they aren't necessarily the best, and as I already mentioned there are a number of beers being produced within this style that are well worth your attention. Some of which I’ve actually picked up from African food shops in London, so don’t be afraid to go digging.

Lion Stout from Lion Brewery Ltd in Shri Lanka is my personal favourite. It’s touching the upper limits of the style with an ABV of 8.8% yet is hugely drinkable, and despite a smell which is dominated by milk chocolate it has a characteristic rich raisin and sour plum character in the taste, alongside a huge wallop of roasted, dry yet sweet malty chocolate and a finish of slightly spicy hops. It’s powerful yet approachable and improves massively if drank between cellar and room temperature rather than chilled.

Jamaica Stout from Big City Brewing in, you guessed it, Jamaica, is another great example. At 7.8% this is another one not for gulping, but which displays many of the qualities which makes “Export Stout” so interesting. This beer has a burnt brown sugar and molasses sweetness which gives way to obligatory roasted malt and flavours of savoury celery salt, rich rum soaked raisins, black cherry and a finish of drying hops with a slight burnt wood astringency. This beer was also brewed in the last Wetherspoons Real Ale Festival by Banks under the name 'Big City Stout', at a lower 5% ABV, and was a good beer but a shadow of its former self.

Next up is a beer which I can’t actually decide if I like or not, Dragon Stout. It was originally created by Hargreaves Geddes and Eugene Desnoes in Jamaica in 1918, but as D&G Ltd was bought by Diageo (in order to acquire the Red Stripe brand) it’s now technically made by them, although they maintain the recipe is unchanged. Dragon Stout (7.5%) is a touch too sweet for me although some beer geeks over at RateBeer seem to, well, rate it. It has a dominant sweet mocha flavour with hints of woody underipe mango and banana, and a slight soy sauce savouriness which creeps in when it warms. I’m not particularly a fan but it’s still worth trying.

Finally, as well as the fantastic Nigerian version there are lots of different types of "Guiness Foreign Extra Stout" still being produced all over the World, which have got to be worth a go, including Malta, Jamaica, Mauritius, Belgium, and Canada. The Mauritian version brewed under license by Phoenix Brewery is next on my list to try, and I’ll report back on what it’s like after my holiday there in September*.

Notes:

*Serendipitously my girlfriend is half Mauritian and half Irish (that's right, just like the Mauritian Guinness!), and her Mum and sister both work for British Airways - meaning we can get affordable flights to, and accommodation on, what is undeniably a paradise island... which is also home to a beer I’ve been wanting to try... Bonus!

There are undoubtaby "Export Stouts" from Nigeria, Jamaica and all over the tropics and Africa which I haven't mentioned - this is because I havent tried them. If you have please comment below!

It’s not just breweries from Africa and The Tropics that are producing “Export Stout” - craft brewers from thousands of miles away such as De Dolle Brouwers in Belgium are also giving it a go, although I’d argue these are based more on the Irish version of “Export Stout” designed for foreign markets (as goes for the Belgian version of FES), rather than the hot-weather hybrids mentioned above, which seem to have a completely unique aroma and flavour, which is what I’m attempting to dissect in this post.

Some of the photos are from Beer Advocate, some are mine.

Saison

Nogne O Brewery tasting session

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Nøgne ø are a fairly new craft beer brewery from Norway (they started in 2002) and I think that like me most people won't have had the chance to try many of their beers. Despite some product being sold at outlets such as Utobeer on Borough Market, and a few other very specialist places, they haven't officially entered the UK market so their beers are still pretty rare over here. But that's something that is hopefully set to change.

Last night I was invited to be on a tasting panel being conducted (with a little help from North Bar's Matt) by a marketing research team working for Nøgne ø brewery based in Norway - no they unfortunately didn't fly us over there, it was held in Leeds!

NB - In case you're wondering how to pronounce Nøgne ø; going by the way our Norweigen hosts said it, I think the pronunciation is something like "Nerg-na-ya oh" but please don't hold me to that. Let's just agree it's hard to say and leave it at that.

We started off by talking about what beers we liked, how seasonality effected our choices, how we got into 'good' beer and some other general beery subjects while the tape recorder rolled and a few of the marketeers made notes.

During the discussion we were served some of the brewery's Pale Ale and were then asked our thoughts on it. Which is pretty much how the rest of the session panned out - a bit of chat while drinking, then a talk about the beer itself after we'd tried it. Everybody there was very honest and forthcoming about what they thought of the beers and there was a really informal atmosphere (we were in a bar afterall), exactly what a tasting session should be.

My notes below are what I thought of the beers, much of which I repeated to the group at the time, but some of which I have contemplated in retrospect.

Pale Ale 6%

Quenching and refreshing, this beer drinks like a good session pale yet has an American hoppyness too it aswell. I liked this beer but it didn't have chance to wow me, and I don't think it got a fair outing. It's the kind of beer you appreciate over the course of a pint, not a small amount being swirled around an oversized wine glass!

Saison 6.5%

Admittedly, it's not a style I've drank a lot of but this one left me distinctly underwhelmed, probably my least favourite of the session. It had a yeasty, slightly citrus aroma which carried through into the flavour which was also earthy and slightly spiced with hints of clove or coriander seed. It was nice, but if all five were on the bar I think this would be my last choice.

India Pale Ale 7.5%

This smelt amazing, with a huge passionfruit led aroma and hints of other tropical fruit such as mango and grapefruit. The flavour didn't quite deliver on the smell but was still damned good, tart and hoppy with big citrus flavours running right through and a dry, slightly boozy finish. I liked it but a few of the others were a little dissapointed and didn't think the flavour matched up to what the smell was promising. I would agree but I think it might have been judged a little harshly by some (Dean!). As we said during the tasting there are so many awesome IPA's flooding the craft beer scene that we are a little spoilt for choice. If you'd have given us this beer a year or so ago I think it would've knocked all our socks off.

Porter 7%

This was a really good, classic Porter. It had that typical roasted, slightly chocolatey coffee flavour yet a nice dry hoppy finish which balanced everything out. It also had that straight-after-an-espresso after taste that I love to find in Porter, where the roasted coffee flavour and hops come together to dry your mouth in the same way that a coffee does. It was really good and something I could have drank a pint of (but probably shouldn't at that ABV).

Imperial Stout 9%

They really saved the best for last with this one - It was the unanimous favourite with the group. A really deep, rich, thick to the point of being oily, Imperial Stout. This was a beer to be savoured. I'm a massive fan of Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and this was the closest I've tasted to it. It wasn't quite as good, but it wasn't far off. The group were bouncing flavours off each other with more mentioned than I can remember, but I'll try: Dark Chocolate, Coffee, Liquorice, Blackcurrant, Peat, Salt, Brown Sugar, Molasses plus loads more. It's the kind of beer you could serve as a dessert with a scoop of good vanilla Ice-cream, and in fact, that's exactly what we ended up doing.

Does that count as a beer cocktail I wonder?

Big thanks to Matt at North Bar for the invite, Nøgne ø for the free beer, and everyone who attended (including Rob from HopZine, Nick from Beer Prole and Dean from Mr Foley's) for making it such an enjoyable few hours.

Wild Swan

Thornbridge craft keg range - Jaipur, Italia, Kipling, Saint Petersburg

Neil, Eating isn't Cheating Thursday, March 17, 2011

There was a welcoming buzz in the air when I visited North Bar in Leeds last night. The bar stools were full of folk sitting and chatting to each other or the bar staff, and the tables were crowded with an even mix of clustered regulars, beer geeks, bloggers and young couples.

It seems that everybody likes an excuse for a mid-week drink, and last night that all-too-tempting excuse was the launch of Thornbridge’s Keg range.

On the adverts for the event the line-up was billed to be Kipling, Wild Swan, Jaipur and Italia, but upon arrival it appeared that the session strength pale ale Wild Swan had been replaced with the breweries polar opposite brew; the heavy weight imperial stout Saint Petersburg. It’s got to be said that Wild Swan is a fine cask ale, a summer thirst quencher or beer garden quaffer, but I wasn’t exactly itching to try it on keg so the Saint Petersburg was a welcome late substitution in my eyes.

There’s been a lot said by the likes of Mark Dredge, Tandleman and Pete Brown and many other bloggers about cask vs keg. For me the argument needs to come down to taste not convenience – if the beer tastes better on keg then serve it on keg, if its better on cask then serve it that way, frankly I don’t give a crap about logistics, it’s just about what’s best for the beer. So the question is, how did these beers fare?

Italia

I started out with a glass of Thornbridge’s 4.8% Pilsner, brewed in collaboration with Maurizio Folli of Birrificio Italiano. Appearance wise it is true to the style, ultra pale and crystal clear. I must admit I’m not a connoisseur of this type of beer, and like many a UK beer lover have been somewhat disenchanted by dull mass-market offerings.

This beer is far from average though. It smells slightly lemony-citrus with just a hint of herbal hop aroma. The first taste is refreshing, crisp, and thirst quenching (yes I know these are all classic marketing words for beer with no flavour but that’s not the case here). There’s also a slightly grainy tasting malt backbone that you don’t get with lesser pilsners. It’s a nice beer but not one I’d rush to buy again if it was on the bar.

For an alternative dissection of this beer have a read of the reviews at Good Stuff, The Beer Prole and HopZine

Kipling
The smell of this 5.2% ‘South Pacific Pale Ale’ is wonderful; pure passion fruit and mango. It’s got that fantastic tropical, juicy, slightly herbal smell that Thornbridge achieve so well. It’s something I love in pale ales so up to this point things are looking good.

Thankfully the taste backs up the smell and you get a nice balance of sweet/sour passion fruit which leads into bitter grapefruit in the finish and a dry, floral, herbal, fruity hop aftertaste. On keg it felt relatively light in body and for me was ever so slightly too cold. I think this beer's strength and style represent my turning point where cask would probably just inch it over keg flavourwise. That said, it was still a great beer and on keg would be a perfect beer to get a lager drinking friend into something a bit more adventurous. Jaipur for beginners you could say.

Jaipur
I purposely left the Jaipur IPA (5.9%) until after Italia and Kipling because I’ve had it enough times before to know how good it is, and I thought I’d never get to the others if I had it first. Plus I didn’t want to ruin my palate with hops or make the other two pale in comparison, so to speak.

I’ve had Jaipur on cask numerous times, it’s widely available and consistenly good. However I have found that the strength of the hops and that grapefruit bite come through in varying degrees when on cask, which is a little annoying when you fancy a really big hop hit.

That wasn't the case here, and this keg was right on the money. In my humble opinion beers of this style and strength just taste better on keg, that sparkle of gas and few degrees extra cooling just bring the beer alive and let those super fresh pithy hops really sing. They were brighter and more orangey, with juicy grapefruit, citrus, orange, mango, passion fruit and a drying edge that balances so well against the slightly sweet body.

It was a belter. Perfection on keg and better than nearly every cask version I’ve had.

Saint Petersburg
I left a half of this Imperial Stout until last, weighing in at 7.7% and this being a weeknight I thought a pint might be pushing it. I never got around to trying this in any form before so can’t compare the dispense to others, so I'll stick to what’s most important, the flavours.

You get a huge hit of rich, dark, roasted espresso coffee on the nose, it dominates and very little in the way of chocolate or other traditional stout aromas come through. The taste again delivers a massive espresso roastyness but there's also a slightly burnt, smoky malt flavour and a very dark bitter chocolate edge as well. There’s also hints of slightly stewed fruit, like a rich mince pie without the spice and a wonderfully fresh late hop bite.

For a big beer it manages to be hugely flavoursome, complex and yet refreshing, and the carbonation helps to avoid that cloying mouthfeel some Imperial Stouts display. The relatively cool temperature hides the abv really well but as the beer warms a slight alcohol hum becomes apparent in the aftertaste. Along with that warming alcohol you get a really nice coffee aftertaste that is genuinely the same as with drinking an espresso. Beautiful!

So a great night all in all with some fantastic kegged beers. It’s all a matter of picking the dispense to suit the beer, and in this instance Thornbridge have got it almost spot on.