Stone Imperial Russian Stout

Brewed By: Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California

Purchased: 22oz bottle from Binny's in Illinois; 2012

Style/ABV: Russian Imperial Stout, 10.5% 
Reported IBUs: 65

It's election night, and it's cold out, and raining. Basically, your typical Autumn day in Chicago...with an election. Obama is leading the polls, and about to win this bitch, so why not celebrate with a big beer. About Stone:

Stone Brewing are one of the more prominent breweries in the American craft brewing scene. They were founded in 1996 in San Marcos, California, and moved to Escondido, California where they recently expanded their operations. Stone was founded by Steve Wagner and Greg Koch. Koch has a reputation among the craft beer community for voicing his opinion, not putting up with shit, and standing behind his beer.

If you check out the Stone RIS page, you can see that this is a monstrous Imperial Stout, clocking in at 10.5% ABV and packing 65 IBUs. This beer is brewed in the tradition of Russian Imperial Stouts, and features notes of anise, currants, coffee, roast, and alcohol. Let's glass this bad-boy up, and see how it holds up.

Stone Imperial Russian Stout

This beer pours like motor oil, with thick, inky black liquid oozing out the bottle. This is high viscosity stuff. The body of the beer is pitch black, and I worked out a finger's worth of thick, coffee-brown head. There are definitely some legs on this, and the head clings to the glass as I swirl it. There's a thin layer of head hanging around, with some bubbles in the middle creating a nice cauldron effect. Overall, a nice looking RIS.

The aroma on this is somewhat mild and subdued, with a nice earthy roast, some coffee, roast, chocolate, sweet chocolate, vanilla, a touch of alcohol, and some woody chocolate. Maybe some molasses and dark fruit on the nose.

I'm pleasantly surprised by how nice this tastes, to be honest. The aroma wasn't blowing me away, but this really builds nicely in the taste, with big sweet chocolate, molasses, roast, hints of liquor, alcohol, boozy complexity, and some anise and spice. I'm getting coffee, Kahlua, hints of smokey anise, sweet chocolate and molasses, earthy roast and wood, and some terminating bitterness. There's a boozy complexity that rides throughout. 

This is on the sweeter side of the style, leaning less on big roast and more on boozy complexity, molasses, chocolate sweetness, and even some hints of brown sugar and coffee. The mouthfeel on this is full; this is full-bodied beer. And it has a slightly oily thing going on, and you can feel this on your lips as your drink it...but it's not the most dense stout out there. This is highly carbonated, which lightens things up, and the mouthfeel fades into slight thinness at times. Complexity is high, palate depth is okay. Up front is some chocolate, molasses  brown sugar, anise; this rolls into more chocolate, Kahlua; the back is earthy and woody roast, lingering sweetness, dry and sticky on the finish. Some nice warming.

Rating: Above-Average

I'm feeling a Strong Above-Average on this. This is a very nice RIS, and much of the complexity comes from the sweet malt profiles and the alcohol. Drinkability is pretty good on this, and the 10.5% ABV disappears nicely. The fact that this is so sweet and boozy makes this a sipping beer, in my opinion. I'd pair this beer with a piece of dry chocolate cake, a cigar, a raunchy burger with onion rings, steak, or just by itself. Good stuff...and something I'd definitely pick up annually.

Random Thought: Congrats Obama, now make your speech!!!