Stone Imperial Russian Stout

Reviews, Russian Imperial Stout, Stone Brewing Company 1 Response »
Dec 212009

#23. That’s what this beer is rated in the world. Is this spot deserved? I will tell you. I am drinking Imperial Russian Stout by Stone Brewing Company. The bottle is Spring 2009 release. It’s black, huge, and beautiful. Which is exactly how Clubby likes his men (payback for the grotto facer comment). In the words of my uncle, “REVIEW THE BEER!”

I popped the cap off the 22oz bomber, and was greeted immediately with one of my favorite aromas. Sweet, chocolately goodness. I poured into my snifter, and was entranced by the nice cascading. There wasn’t much head that didn’t last very long, but when it was there it was a tan color. Color is pitch black that doesn’t allow any light through. Smelling it reveals a chocolate, mocha aroma. In my mouth it feels heavenly. Thick, rich, sweet, bitter. Extremely well balanced. It’s got a chocolate taste mixed with an extra bold coffee. It is very smooth and creamy. Alcohol hides behind the rest of the big flavors. Carbonation is very little, which is fine. There’s enough where you don’t feel like you are drinking pure syrup. It’s definitely full bodied.

A fairly short review because I want to enjoy the rest of this beer in quiet solitude. I love stouts, and this is definitely one of the best. It is so well balanced, almost perfect in everything that you would expect in a beer. For 10.5% ABV, it is very deceptive. Aside from the buzz that I am getting, there’s no indication of the alcohol whatsoever. I wish I picked up two bottles so that I can cellar one, but luckily this is easy to find. Go out, buy it, drink it slowly, savor it.

Posted by Greg at 9:14 pm

Clubby Reviews Brooklyn Black Ops

Brooklyn Brewery, Reviews, Russian Imperial Stout No Responses »
Feb 082009

Alo my sexy friends. Tonight is a very special night. For this is the 22nd anniversary of a man morphing into a god. Witnessed by America and the entire world, one man and one man alone stood and shouted “we will not be fools, cowards or jerkies! We are America and damn it to heck, we can skate fabulously!”. Brian Boitano skated and shook his little money maker across the ice. Dressed in a tight royal blue wizard outfit he performed the amazing quad toe loop and took home gold! President Reagan released a statement addressed the world shortly after the amazing feat. Reagan stated “Brian Boitano does not represent American males”.

I’m sorry for wasting your time! I’m not funny, this beer is just making me feel loopy! Is it a beer? Is it a weak liquor? Who knows! All I know is I should invest in a snifter because this pint glass is way way way too much!

It poured dark dark dark brown. A shade or two lighter than black. Its head was about  3 fingers, dark tan and quite sneaky! It almost foamed past the top of my glass and onto my poor sticky keyboard.

As soon as I popped the cork the aroma of bourbon filled my nose. Yowzas! Bourbon overwhelmed while roasted malts were there but were almost suffocated. Bourbon is quite distinct and powerful! Immediately I feel I should have let this age!

I was hoping that maybe the flavor and mouthfeel would ease the initial shock. It didn’t. It  tastes as it smells. The bourbon hit my tongue hard as little slight hints of watery chocolate came through. I felt it was too watery for the flavors and the stingy carbonation didn’t seem to fit either.

I don’t think this drink was quite ready. It wasn’t balanced and the flavors needed to mellow out a bit. I may pick up another bottle to try in a year or so.

There are many rave reviews on other sites that I just don’t agree with. I wonder if people favor certain beers because they are limited releases. So they can tell that story of the fish that got away, the best beer that once was.

Posted by Clubby at 5:13 pm

Last Full Batch Brewed of 2008...Sadness :*(

Homebrews, Recipes, Russian Imperial Stout, Sweet Stout No Responses »
Nov 112008

Well, it happened. We brewed our last full batch of beer this year. Cold weather is coming, and since we must brew outside, we will be forced to beerbernate for the winter. Hopefully, this beer will be ready in time for Christmas, sice that was the point of it. We tried thinking of a good beer for the holiday seasons, and it was a little late to brew a pumpkin ale. So we thought of what is consumed around the holidays and how to make it into a beer. We settled on an egg nog inspired beer, because that sounded better than a mincemeat pie beer. We didn’t put any egg in the beer, or nog for that matter. What we did was take a basic egg nog recipe, and just used the spices to give our beer that holiday feel. The spices we chose were nutmeg and cinnamon, with some vanilla. And what makes egg nog better? Rum. So that will be going in also.

Now that we chose the spices, we tried to think of the “base” ale which it will be applied to. What we decided on is a stout that is somewhere between a Sweet Stout, and a Russian Imperial Stout. We wanted it sweet and malty, but also kind of high in alcohol to keep us warm in the winter. We have never added spice to a beer, so we took guesses on amounts, hoping that they would be enough to detect, but not overwhelm. Worst case scenario, we don’t know they are there. Now for the complete recipe:

Christmas Stout
13-F Russian Imperial Stout
Author: Greg & Chris

Size: 6.48 gal
Efficiency: 83.86%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 247.73 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.074 (1.075 – 1.115)
Terminal Gravity: 1.019 (1.018 – 1.030)
Color: 42.87 (30.0 – 40.0)
Alcohol: 7.32% (8.0% – 12.0%)
Bitterness: 28.9 (50.0 – 90.0)

Ingredients:
1 lb Black Malt
12 lb Pale Ale Malt
2 lb Chocolate Malt
2 lb Roasted Barley
2 oz Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 tsp Nutmeg (ground) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 tsp Cinnamon (ground) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Vanilla (extract) – added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Rum – added dry to secondary fermenter
1 ea WYeast 1028 London Ale

00:30:33 Mash In – Liquor: 3.19 gal; Strike: 118.97 °F; Target: 104.0 °F
01:30:33 Infusion – Water: 5.25 gal; Temperature: 194.6 °F; Target: 153 °F
02:00:33 Batch Sparge – First sparge: 6 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 30 min; Total Runoff: 12.06 gal

If you will notice, I also included the mash schedule, which we followed to a T. This is the first time we used Beer Tools to help develop a schedule, and it really helped. I think though next time I will scale back the ratio by .25 qts per pound of grain, since we had a little too much. The only snag we ran into with the mash was that our hose filter floated up and the grain got underneath it, giving us a stuck mash, so we had to resort to removing grain, straining, fixing tube, then putting the grain back in the mash tun. We then sparged with absolutely no problems after that. We didn’t use the full 6 gallons in the sparge, we took gravity readings until we were getting a 1.008 reading, then stopped. We probably sparged with 3-4 gallons bringing our total volume to approximately 9 gallons. We had a 2.5 hour boil to get the volume down to about 6.5 gallons, which is where we ended it.

We were surprised with our 83% efficiency, although we don’t know if we can reproduce that. We will keep trying though. We are really excited about this beer though. I have high hopes for it. Right now it is bubbling away violently, getting closer to that final product. Yummy.

Posted by Greg at 9:08 am
© 2010 Campfire Brewery Suffusion WordPress theme by Sayontan Sinha