The Storm King Masters the Black Art of Imperial Stout
Written: Apr 14 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Rich, complex mileau of luscious dark roast flavors
Cons: Not widely available outside Pennsylvania
The Bottom Line: If you are a die-hard fan of rich, dark, hearty stouts then you owe it to yourself to try Storm King. Skip it if you drink Bud or Coors.
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Victory Storm King Imperial Stout |
Imperial stouts are some of my very favorite beers in the world -- I just absolutely love the complex mileau of flavors that a well-brewed imperial stout brings to the table. One of the very best imperial stouts you can buy in the U.S. is the outstanding Storm King from Victory Brewing Company. This is one of the biggest, strongest beers you can buy -- but also one of the best.
What Imperial Stout Should Be...
Combine everything that makes a stout black and roasted tasting, double it to at least the strength of a good barleywine, and viola! you have a Russian Imperial Stout -- the biggest, blackest, thickest beer you ever laid lips on!
Imperial stouts have enormously complex flavor profiles. People compare imperial stouts to the flavor of coffee and chocolate. Not just any coffee and chocolate, mind you, but the biggest, boldest tasting types they can think of. The dark roasted barley used in stouts has a flavor and aroma that borders on being burnt -- much like a really dark italian espresso coffee. The chocolate flavors that people identify are those of premium dark chocolates or maybe pure black cocoa. There are often dark fruit flavors (like plums) from esters produced by the fermentation process -- a process that a brewer needs to carefully control.
Big beers are sometimes a challenge for a brewer. If fermentation temperatures shoot up uncontrolled, yeast growth runs rampant, producing lots of unwanted by-products -- not just those esters that add some complexity, but also higher alcohols, fatty acids, and other compounds that contribute off-flavors and make a beer taste unpleasant. Properly fermented, an imperial stout is a luscious treasure trove of richly complex flavors interwoven in a stunning tapestry of taste sensations.
A good imperial stout tastes heavy and ponderous. The best examples have densities as high as 25 Plato (1100 OG) -- about twice what a fairly strong Irish stout would be. Imperial stout is blacker than used motor oil. It is sweet and flavorful. Nobody who drinks one for the first time really appreciates it. Nobody who appreciates it wants anything else...
Because of the popularity of Michael Jackson's many beer books, everyone regards Courage Imperial Stout (1100 OG) as the benchmark by which all other imperial stouts are judged. The problem is, not many people I know have ever tasted a Courage Imperial Stout since it is generally unavailable in the United States. The best that many of us can do (aside from homebrewing) is to look for the lesser examples and learn what we can from them. Old Rasputin from North Coast is often held up as an example of a good imperial stout, but its starting gravity is only about 1075. For many years we didn't even have that -- we had to look to Grants Imperial Stout, which clocks in at a merely regal 1065 or so. Even Dominion's highly regarded Imperial Stout is only brewed to a gravity in the 1070s. Enter Storm King to take the throne: at a gravity of over 1090 and an alcohol level of about 9%, we finally have an American made imperial stout that truly deserves the name "imperial".
Sample Conditions
These notes are from a bottle purchased at a high-volume liquor store in Baltimore. I bought a case from the refrigerated cold room, and do not believe the beer to have ever been stored warm or under lights. I have also had the beer on tap at the brewery, at various beer festivals in the mid-atlantic states, and from cases obtained at the brewery.
Storm King in My Glass...
Enough about the glittering generalities...let's pour the beer!
Appearance: Pouring the beer into the glass, I notice that it kicks up only the slightest tawny brown head. The beer looks thick as pancake syrup and darker than a moonless night. I hold the glass up against a bright light,
and can't see so much as a glimmer of light anywhere.
Aroma: Immediately after pouring the beer, I slowly wave it under my nose and inhale deeply. It smells almost like a fruitcake with its delicious blend of blackstrap molasses, currants, and plums. There's obviously some esters at work here, and while I was looking for some of the signature of higher alcohols too, I'm pleasantly surprised to find that the alcohol smell is subdued -- a difficult thing for a brewer to do with such a big beer. The aroma is incredibly complex, with a lot of rich dark chocolate and roast coffee smells from the grain. There is not so much as a hint of any kind of hop-related aroma that I can spot.
Flavor:
If the aroma seems complex, the flavor must be beyond comprehension -- there's just so much going on here! While my initial impression is that I'm tasting something like a decadent dark fudge espresso-flavored brownie, the deep-seated hop bitterness kicks in -- the hops balance the beer like a master high-wire artist who works without a net. As I swallow, I notice the feeling of alcoholic warming, but with all the flavor and sweetness that this beer carries, it doesn't seem overly hot at all.
Brewery Notes:
Victory Brewing Company is located in Downingtown Pennsylvania in a cavernous building that used to be a Wonder Bread bakery. There is a modernistic brewpub on premises with windows looking into the brewery itself. The owners and brewers were former brewers at Baltimore Brewing Company and Old Dominion Brewing Company. The brewery is highly regarded throughout the country for its dedication to high quality and for its breadth of styles, especially in brewing bigger beers, like Storm King, Old Horizontal, and the delectably bitter Hop Devil IPA.
Pairing Storm King with Food:
While conventional wisdom holds that imperial stouts match up well with chocolates and other rich desert flavors, I think this is also the ideal kind of beer to serve with anything that you might serve with a big full-bodied red wine, including venison or game fowl like roast goose. It would also go well with almost beef dish.
Overall Impression:
Music critics like to talk about their "desert island discs" -- that handful of indispensible recordings that could be played over-and-over without driving a guy bonkers. If I were stranded on a desert island, I'd rather have be confined to a supply of just a few beers that I could enjoy over and over. Storm King would be at the very top of my "desert island beer" list -- it's that good! Pick a cool evening and pop open a cool Storm King -- if you're a die-hard fan of big dark beers, I'll bet Storm King makes your "desert island beer" list too!
Recommended:
Yes
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