Beer of the Week: Reuben's Brews Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Russian Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Reuben’s recently released their Bourbon Barrel Russian Imperial Stout for their first anniversary. I went it to taste it and compare notes from the first time I had it and realized that, for some reason, I never got around to posting about that beer. So you are in for a treat – you get a review of both versions of the beer in one post! Aren’t you all just lucky readers?

Batch #1 – 11% ABV, 64 IBU. Jet black with no head. Light notes of bourbon and vanilla with hints of wood on the nose. The beer starts off with slightly sweet roasted malt before it quickly transitions to wood with a strong but not overpowering bourbon finish which is coupled with a slight sweetness. As the beer warms at coats the palate, the vanilla and roasted components begin to take over, balancing out the wood and bourbon notes. The beer opens up the further into it you get. The beer is an alcohol bomb and there is definitely a slight alcohol burn associated with it (not nearly as much as I expected), but it dissipates/becomes less noticeable the further into the beer you get. This beer is definitely something you need to be in the mood for because of the heavy wood and bourbon components, and is probably something that you are not going to drink more than one of, just because it is such a big beer and is something that you are going to be sipping over quite a long time. I really liked this big, heavy, malty, boozy beer. Batch #1 dances in with 4 Cossacks out of 5.

Batch #2 – They reused the barrels from batch #1 and, from what I was told, the second use of the barrel tends to produce better results. The beer seemed more integrated than the first batch – there was less single flavor transitioning as you were drinking it. Each stage seemed to have multiple layers of flavors. The nose was more complex, yielding notes of chocolate, coffee, bourbon and vanilla. A slight sweetness once again starts you off followed by heavy malt and bourbon notes with hints of oak, vanilla, coffee and cherries. The oak and bourbon are much more supporting cast members in this version with then adding a pleasant background to the stout flavors without overpowering them. With the same alcohol as the first batch, there was no astringency, making this an incredibly smooth and well integrated wood aged beer. Batch #2 storms the Kremlin and takes over singing an amazing 5 International’s out of 5.

The good news is that Reuben’s is planning on making this beer again and bottling it sometime in the near future, so you will be able to take this home and enjoy it. I already am making room in the beer cellar for this one.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Russian Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Beer of the Week: NW Peaks Sloan Stout

By Blaidd Drwg

I love stouts, especially when the weather is cold. To me, they are the beer equivalent of hot chocolate – hearty and flavorful, warming the belly and feeding the soul. Needless to say, I was excited when NW Peaks released 2 stouts as part of their mountain beer collection, Sloan and Stuart. It was a fun experience drinking them side by side to compare them (Stuart was previously reviewed here).

From the NW Peaks Website:

The mountain. Sloan Peak is a prominent-looking mountain situated all by itself just off the mountain loop “highway”. It’s a great, distinctive mountain that appears to be falling over, depending on your vantage… The Beer. We used the same yeast used to make Guinness and tried to mimic the water profile of Dublin, Ireland to create our own interpretation of a dry stout, a style that Guinness has made ever so popular…

The beer pours predictably dark. Notes of coffee, toffee and chocolate permeate the nose with the coffee leading the assault. The beer starts off on your palate pretty light, giving way to a pleasantly mild astringency (think black coffee) before hitting you with a tidal wave of flavor. Coffee and chocolate dominate before leading into a long, sweet and slightly smoky finish. Sloan was much more robust than I was expecting and it becomes more so as it warms. It was like drinking a Guinness on steroids.

I case you are wondering, here is what I am referring to in the rating.

Sloan Stout was a wonderful interpretation of a dry stout and best of all, is still available in growler according to the NW Peaks website (you may want to call ahead and confirm). If it is, treat yourself to one of the better stouts available in the Northwest.

NW Peaks Sloan Stout stumbles into the brewery with an ethereal 4 St. James’s Gates out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Stone Collaboration Cherry Chocolate Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Finally the last of the Stone Collaboration Beer reviews. This one had been hiding in my notebook, so that is why I missed it. I love stout, I love cherries and I love chocolate and when you put them together well, it can be an out of body experience. Stone got together with Troegs brewing out of Pennsylvania and a couple of San Diego home brewers, Jason Fields and Kevin Sheppard, to produce this beer. From the Stone website:

The rich, smooth stout was brewed in late April, with a blend of dark-roasted specialty malts, Callebaut chocolate liquor, vanilla beans, and 9000 pounds of dark and tart cherries. “Seeing how much the recipe was blown up to brew it on this system is amazing,” Jason chimes in. “And getting to work with everybody… it’s been so cool.”

Single 12-oz bottles
Available in: AK AZ CA CO DE FL IL KY MA MD MN NC NJ NM NY OH OR PA SC TX VA VT WA
7.3% abv, 37 IBUs
2448 cases produced

I paid $4.99 for my 12oz. bottle.

The beer pours jet black with a mahogany head. Copious amounts of roasted malt on the nose with hints of cocoa nibs and a very small amount of cherries if you go looking for them. The beer starts out slightly sweet before quickly transitioning to the roasted malt and finishes long with hints of cherries during the fade. As you make it further into the beer, the cherries become more pronounced and the roast is replaced by a pleasant milk chocolate finish – it reminded me of a Theo Chocolates cherries and almond bar and I was looking for the roasted almonds when I was drinking it.

This beer was fantastic and I really wish that they would brew it again.

I cannot tell a lie, the Stone Collaboration Cherry Chocolate Stout coms in swinging a 5 Cherry Trees out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben’s Brews Mocha Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The delicious Mocha Stout. You can even see the famous Iron Chef Leftovers beer notebook in this shot.

With the frequency that that review beers from Reuben’s Brews, you would think that the brewery is paying me to do it. I can assure you that is not the case. I review so many of their beers for a variety of reasons, mostly because the brewery is less than a 10 minute walk from my house. A few months back, they put on a Mocha Porter – I love coffee based beers and this one I had to try. Oh yeah, it also included a nice dose of cocoa nibs – so it really got my interest. It was available on nitro when I had it. It clocked in at a healthy 8.4% ABV and 34 IBU.

The beer poured jet black as expected. For a beer that had both cocoa and coffee in it, the nose was fairly restrained. There are definite notes of both coffee and chocolate, but you were still able to pick out hints of both grain and malt in between them – this was a huge surprise to me for such a big beer. The palate is also very restrained – there are distinct flavors of light roast coffee with hints of sweetness to start out, followed quickly by a pleasant maltiness which then transitions into a moderately intense chocolate finish with hints of bitter coffee. The finish is extremely long and you still get hints of dark chocolate well after you take a sip. It is not as intense chocolate as most chocolate beers and the coffee is more restrained that I would have expected, but the beer is extremely well balanced and you can actually taste the beer.

While most coffee beers are like drinking a good espresso or cappuccino, this one is more like heading down to a coffee shop and ordering a light roast drip with no milk – you know you are drinking coffee but you taste more of the complexity of the bean than the roast of the espresso.

If this beer ever comes back, you need to head to Reuben’s and have one (or two).

Reuben’s Brews Mocha Stout percolates in the pot with a perfect 5 coffea arabica out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Reuben's Brews Mocha Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If this beer ever comes back, you need to head to Reuben’s and have one (or two).

Reuben’s Brews Mocha Stout percolates in the pot with a perfect 5 coffea arabica out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Sound Brewery Ursus Americanus

By Iron Chef Leftovers

If you order an Ursus and get this, you might be in trouble.

Out in tiny Poulsbo, Washington, there is an unlikely large grouping of breweries. One of them is Sound Brewery, a brewery that is probably best known around these parts for their use of Belgian strains of yeast. You may not realize it, but they also do a pretty fantastic job with other styles of beer. Ursus Americanus, better know as the American Black Bear, is an American stout. As described on the Sound website:

Ursus Americanus American Stout – 6.5% ABV
Dark, strong, smooth American stout bursting with coffee and dark chocolate aroma and smooth velvety texture.
Availability: Draft only

The beer, as expected, pours jet black with a creamy brown head. There are strong notes of chocolate and roasted malt dominating the nose. The first sip is surprisingly slightly sweet with a healthy dose of chocolate slowly fading into nicely pleasant roasted malt; almost reminding me of a malt ball candy. The beer isn’t done; fading back into a long and lingering chocolate finish. I was surprised by this beer – it smells like it would be heavy and roast dominant, but there is very little in the way of bitterness or heavy roast flavors; they are still there, but they are moderate – this is still by no means a light beer. The beer is extremely well balanced and easy to drink despite its higher alcohol content and dark and malty nature.

What you really should get is something that looks like this.

This is one that I really wish Sound would put into bottles – I would drink this a lot more often if they did.

Sound Brewery’s Ursus Americanus saunters into your camp and steals your food with a sneaky 4 cute cubs out of 5.

Beer of the Week – NW Peaks Stuart Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

One of the things I love about the mountain beer program at NW peaks is that if you sign up for 2 growlers and invite some friends over, you can compare and contrast both styles that they put out each month. A few months ago, it was stouts, and considering the way the weather had been, a stout tasting was very much in order. The beer is still available in growlers from NW Peaks if you are so inclined (or was as of this writing – check with the brewery).

The description from the brewery website:

Since Mt Stuart is one of the most noticeable, bold, non-volcanic peaks in WA we tried to make the beer bearing its name similar. We based this beer on last year’s recipe but reduced the munich malt and changed hop varietals (but the hops have the same characteristics). This resulted in a slightly smoother, lower-bodied beer while retaining the dark roastiness making Stuart Stout a rich, full bodied, deeply roasty interpretation of the style. A fine beer to drink anytime, but best enjoyed in front of a fire on a cold rainy winter evening.

Malts: 2 row, roast, chocolate, crystal 40, wheat, and a smattering of oats. Hops: Apollo, Goldings. ABV: ~4.75%

The beer pours jet black with a fizzy tan head. Lots of roasted malt notes on the nose with hints of chocolate and coffee. The initial taste yields a pleasant, slightly burnt roasted flavor (think dark roasted coffee) yielding to mild chocolate flavors with some sweetness and hints of oatmeal. The beer finishes long with a pleasant roast notes. As the beer warms, hints of cocoa powder show up and the finishes seems to go on forever.

Stuart Stout is a great beer to sip next to warm fire on a cold day to feed the soul.

NW Peaks Stuart Stout hikes into base camp with a tasty 4 s’mores out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Elysian Brewing Split Shot Espresso Milk Stout

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Living in Seattle, which does have a slight (and justified) reputation for being an over-caffinated city, you would expect that you would see more coffee based beers, but you don’t. For the 2012 Seattle Beer Week, Elysian Brewing was selected to come up with the beer for the event and they produced Split Shot Stout – marrying the city’s love of coffee with its love of beer. I generally will try anything new that Elysian puts out and I really think that their dark beers tend to be their best work. I have tried Split Shot both on tap and in 22 oz. bottles, and the review is for the bottle release. The beer runs around $6 at your local bottle shop (although it is often on sale at mega marts with a better beer selection).

From the Elysian Press Release on the beer:

In Seattle, beer and coffee grew up together. They’re like siblings, jealously balancing the day between go-go and go-slow, dividing the hip and tattoo’d into brewers and roasters, barkeeps and baristas. Split Shot Coffee Milk Stout combines the talents of Elysian Brewing and Lighthouse Roasters, and commemorates not only Seattle Beer Week as its official beer for 2012, but the fact that it took a lot of talk and lot of Lighthouse coffee to get Elysian off the ground back in 1996. Split Shot has a radically complicated malt bill, with C-15 and C-45 dextrine malts, Franco-Belges kiln coffee malt, Black, Roasted and Chocolate malts and flaked oats. It’s bittered with Magnum and slightly sweetened with milk sugar. OG 16 (1.065); alcohol 7.25% by volume., Split Shot is the official beer for 2012 Seattle Beer Week. Available in select Seattle area restaurants, bars and stores, on draft and in 22-oz. bottles.

Split Shot pours with a tan head and a pitch black body. There is absolutely no question what this beer is from the smell – coffee and lots of roasted malt dominate and that is from a foot away from the beer. Up close, this beer smells like a coffee shop roasting its beans – heavy espresso with hints of smoke and grains, taking me back to my bachelor days when I lived near Lighthouse coffee and would smell them roasting beans in the afternoon. The beer has a creamy mouth feel, like taking a sip of espresso with a good crema. Lingering coffee dominates the palate, with a slight bitterness and just a hint of malt and milk sweetness on the back end – this beer could easily be confused for an iced espresso. The coffee is strong but not completely overpowering, but I would still not recommend this beer unless you really liked coffee. As the beer warms, the coffee becomes more restrained and notes of chocolate, sugar, barley and grain start to appear. I would recommend serving this beer between 40 and 45 degrees if you like slightly bitter coffee and 45 to 50 degrees if you want to taste the full range of flavors that this beer has to offer.

If you like coffee and beer, get your over-caffeinated self to a bottle shop and pick this one up, you won’t regret it.

Elysian Split Shot Stout shakes itself down to the local coffee shop with a delicious 4 grande, non-fat mocha with whips out of 5.

Beer of the Week: Fremont Brewing Cherry Almond Dark Star

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I really like Fremont Brewing – they have great beers, a dedicated mission to reduce their carbon footprint and a really great tasting room located just a couple miles from the Iron Chef abode. One of the benefits of their tasting room is that they carry some one off beers on cask. The downside of this is that they tend to be very small production and are gone almost as quickly as they show up. A recent trip to the tasting room yielded a Cherry and Almond version of their very tasty Dark Star Imperial Oatmeal Stout. It was a blustery day when I visited so something dark was in order and how could I pass up a beer with two of my favorite things – cherry and almonds.

I couldn’t find any info on the beer online, so here is what the regular Dark Star is described as:

Roasty, chocolate tones swirled with oatmeal smoothness and dark as the night. The Dark Star crashes, pouring its light into ashes, so follow as the Lady of Velvet in the nights of goodbye. This one is too smooth…and at 8.0% ABV, dangerous.
Down & Dirty: 2-Row, Roast Barley, Crystal-60, Chocolate, & Carafa-2 malts with Flaked Oats and Magnum, Wilamette & Cascade hops. 8.0% ABV
Availability: Year-Round

This beer pours jet black with the faintest hint of cream on the head, and was served at room temperature. There is lots of roasted malt and grain on the nose with a background of almonds, so subtle that you may not notice it if you were not looking for it. Taking a sip of this beer is an experience – lots of malt and roasting coffee initially, giving way to almonds, chocolate and dried cherries in a very long and lingering finish, which is good, since this beer is a bit boozy and a couple will do you in. There was also a bit of bitterness in the initial few sips, which might be off putting to some, but I thought was a nice balance to all of the flavors that were in the beer, and the bitterness did eventually disappear. There is a pleasantly mild residual almond flavor that lingers on the tongue between sips, and overall the beer makes me think of an unsweetened cherry almond dark chocolate bar – so much so that I could actually imagine it in a solid form.

This version of Dark Star was a very fun drinking experience and wish it was more widely available. My only complaint is that I would have liked a bit more cherry flavor on the finish, but that is a personal preference as I love the combination of cherry and stout. Other than that, this was a great beer and you should rush down to the Fremont tap room if it does make another appearance.

Cherry Almond Dark Star pulls is a heavy 4 gravity wells out of 5.