Oskar Blues, Ten Fidy Imperial Stout

Oskar Blues Brewery

Ten Fidy

10.5% ABV

Imperial Stout

4 pack 12 oz. cans

www.oskarblues.com

Personal Rating: 9.3/10

Style Rating: 9.7/10

Availability: Seasonal

The guys that brought you the famous Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub, and Yella Pils also have devised this delicious, complex imperial stout entitled Ten Fidy.  This is an absolute must have for your craft beer collection and puts many other stouts I have had in the past to shame.  

Classified as a Russian Imperial Stout, it was inspired by the recipe used by brewers back in the late 1700’s.  Its history traces back to London, England and was created as a strong, dark beer used for export to the Russia Czars.  Among its other notable characteristics, its classification is mostly due to the high alcohol content.  Packed with enormous amounts of chocolate and roasted malts, the Ten Fidy boasts a bold malt character, high ABV rating, and almost a fruity or cherry finish on the tail end.  

Oskar Blues Brewery is a Colorado based operation that started roughly 10 years ago and has recently expanded their company into North Carolina allowing for 2 locations in which to produce high quality craft beer and also meet the demand of the public.  Owner/founder Dale Katechis runs an organic farm on premises where he harvests his own hop farm annually for use in his diverse collection.  The popularly known Dale’s Pale Ale is their staple beer and certainly has made quite an impact on the general public and craft beer consumers.  The Ten Fidy is only a seasonal beer from their repertoire (as stouts are mostly a fall/winter beer) but if you can find it out of season, it is absolutely worth a spin on the palate and promises not to disappoint.  

I did not find this pours with a big, thick, creamy head like one would expect from a stout even when aggressively poured, but its low level of carbonation is most likely the correlation between the two.  Either way, it did not affect the drinkability or overall presentation of this beer.  I am very fond of their commitment to canning over bottling.  I think their choice to stick to cans and shy away from flashy labeling on bottles allows the beer and recipe to speak for itself.  Though sold in 4 packs of 12 ounce cans, I would not suggest finishing them in one sitting.  I put the Ten Fidy in my personal category of dessert beers; to be enjoyed slowly after a meal.  

Be sure to try the Ten Fidy for all you stout lovers out there!  I thoroughly enjoyed the roasted malts and complexity of chocolate and cherries.  Cheers!

Wanna try it now? Order it online at whitehorsewine.com

Finch's Beer Company, Secret Stash Stout

From a local craft brewery out of Chicago, IL comes Finch’s Beer Co. with their Secret Stache Stout. The chocolate malts used to brew this beer are quite prominent, whereas the vanilla bean wasn't as detectable. Indeed, this is a very robust stout, dark in color with a cherry, reddish hue to its black, chocolate appearance. It does not provide a creamy, thick head like I expected, but an aggressive pour will provide a head like it would out of a keg. Either way, it made no difference in my overall opinion and/or evaluation of this delicious stout.

American stouts differ from English and Irish stouts in that some are highly hopped or complemented with coffee or chocolate to add to the roasted flavors often associated with this style of beer. This addition is certainly a significantly noticeable method used in Finch’s Beer Company’s method of brewing this flavorful stout.

Finch’s Secret Stache Stout would send Sir Arthur Guinness running for the hills in hopes of reinventing the wheel! A US Beer Open Championship Gold Medal Winner and also a Gold Medal Winner at the 2013 World Expo of Beer and the 2013 United States Open Beer Championship, this stout confidently and proudly lives up to its world renown reputation.

For the stout lovers out there (myself included), this one is a home run! Their stout is a very easy drinking, medium-bodied stout with chocolate and coffee notes followed by a smooth, rounded out finish. Yes I would purchase this beer again and I would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a new stout to try. It was definitely a great session beer and thoroughly enjoyed. Cheers!

5.3% ABV

Personal Rating: 9.8/10

Wanna try it now? Order it online at: 

https://www.whitehorsewine.com/proddetail.php?prod=854992003149

Port Brewing | Old Viscosity

Port Brewing's Old Viscosity, an "American Dark Strong Ale," that "blurs the boundaries of Porter, Stout, Old Ale, and Barleywines." This beer is brewed, and then there is a 20% addition of the same beer that has been aged in bourbon barrels.

For all intensive purposes, I consider this beer an Imperial Stout more than anything else… maybe a strong ale. But let's keep things simple, it's a stout!

Poured into a pint glass, Old Viscosity has a thick opaque black color with a huge four inches of caramel colored head. This stuff looks super thick, beads of beer are sliding through the foam on the sides of my glass. After the head recedes some, there is a lot of sticky lacing left.

The aroma is chock full of sweet boozy alcohol, dark fruit, and a nice whiff of bourbon. Dark chocolate, vanilla, leather, and hints of coffee also make their presence known.

The taste is boozy alcohol up front, sweet figs and plums, followed by a smoothing oak character (leather, cocoa, vanilla, charred wood). The finish has a noticeable hop bite with a roasted coffee flavor that lingers for quite a bit.

My god this is an insanely smooth beer. Sweet and boozy, full bodied and syrupy with a somewhat bitter finish. Port is really proving their worth as the new hot beer in town. They make great IPA's, as a San Diego brewer should, but Old Viscosity shows they aren't a one trick pony. My fridge is full of stouts right now, and this one blows them all away.

Personal 8.5/10
Style 9.5/10

Great Divide | Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

Espresso Oak Aged Yeti

Ahhh, the latest incarnation of Great Divide's famed creature, the YETI! Great Divide loves the Yeti, and rightfully so, has made the Yeti their claim to fame. There are currently six different versions of this beer, most being seasonal, and some being quite rare. Lets get a beanful of this one, the espresso oak aged variation. (yep, I really just said "beanful")

Poured into a pint glass from a 22oz bottle, this Yeti has got to be the thickest beer I've ever poured. It looks like melted chocolate flowing into my glass. Jet black in color with two fingers of brown foamy head. Excellent head retention, and lots of lacing are left after each sip.

The aroma is loaded with coffee/espresso, dark roasty malt, wet oak, and hints of alcohol. A good swirl releases moderate amounts of alcohol sweetness ranging from chocolate, dark fruit, and licorice.

The flavor is of smooth velvety chocolate and coffee with undertones of vanilla, oak, and sweet fruit. The finish has a lingering dark chocolate bitterness and perhaps a bitter hop character. It's baffling how smooth and rich this beer is. Definitely way too drinkable for it's own good; but I guess having the consistency of spent engine oil is only helping the cause. It's so sludgy that I bet it would cure a sore throat.

Granted, I haven't had KBS, CBS, or BCBS, regardless of that, this is definitely the best stout I've ever had. The regular Yeti is phenomenal on it's own, but the espresso and oak aging give it some serious oomph. Good lord is it delicious, and man is it squatchy.

Personal 10/10, for an Imperial Stout 10/10.

Terrapin Beer Company | Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

Back to back Terrapin Beer Co. offerings tonight as we do another winter seasonal,  Wake-n-Bake Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout this one being part of the Monster Beer Tour.  The tour consists of four Imperial versions of various styles for each season.  Tons of hops, lots of flavor, and high alcohol content is the norm for these truly huge beers.  This is definitely my favorite out of the four.  Although there is one that I haven't tried, Hopzilla Imperial IPA, which will be joining the tour for 2012.  I'll be looking forward to that one...hopefully we will get it.

Wake-n-Bake was poured from a 12oz bottle into a Sam Adams Perfect Pint Glass.  It's black as night and a good inch of brown creamy head recedes quickly down to a thin layer.  More retention here than I saw from the Moo-Hoo.  That plume of effervescence is once again rising up to the top in the center of my glass.  As I swirl the beer there is a good amount of creamy lacing that sticks to the side rather than ooze down like it did with the Moo-Hoo.  

Wow, the aroma here is pretty much all dark roast coffee.  Alcohol is just slightly detectible as it is masked from the coffee smell.  They suggest jokingly that this would make a great beer to have with breakfast.  After smelling it I'm not sure that was actually a joke.  W-n-B is brewed with Jittery Joe's Coffee, a local Athens, Georgia gourmet Coffee company.  Wow, the intense coffee aromas make me wish Jittery Joe's was available in Jersey...guess I'll just have to settle for Wawa. 

As the first sip is taken, it is overwhelmingly coffee.  The coffee is almost so robust it could be compared to espresso with some alcohol taste.  Even though you can taste the alcohol,(this brew is 8.1%), it is hidden quite well by the intense coffee flavors.  On the back end you can taste the roasted malts and a slight dark chocolate taste as they complement the coffee taste quite well. This is a rich full bodied stout.  Very creamy and luscious as is goes down.  Great after taste as well.  An almost perfect representation of an Imperial Coffee Stout.  Don't miss this one as it will go fast!  Personal 9.0/10 and style 9.5/10.

Southern Tier | 2X Stout

Southern Tier 2X Stout...When we heard about this one we were definitely excited! Considering how good the Blackwater series is (Java Stout, Chokolat Stout, Oat Stout, ect.) it was probably a given that this brew would be another winner from Southern Tier Brewing. Where as the previously mentioned brews are only available in bombers, this new offering is in six packs.

This double stout is actually a milk stout or a cream\sweet stout. Milk stouts are brewed with lactose sugar which as you guessed is derived from milk. These sugars are unfermentable so during fermentation they remain in tact and add a sweetness and body to the finished product. Mmm sounds delicious.

So onto the beer. Poured from a 12 oz bottle into a pint glass. Dark as night as I can't see through it as I hold it up in front of the computer screen...just like it should be. After the pour about a half inch of brown froth was left behind which quickly disappeared after a short time with minimal lacing. I was really expecting more from the pour as the sides of my glass are pretty much clean.

What the pour lacks the aromas make up for...dark roasted malts, coffee, espresso and dark semi-sweet chocolate are easily detectible here. They do a good job of masking the higher alcohol content as this one comes in at 8%. Things are already looking up: even though the head didn't stick around for long, the aromas are still very strong and inviting.

As you would expect from a milk stout, this one is definitely on the sweet side but not too sweet. Think coffee with milk and a couple spoon fulls of sugar. The chocolatey roasted malts also shine through and are not over powered by the lactose sugar. For a double stout I find this one to be rather smooth and easy to drink. Not too thick but thick enough. Sweet but not too sweet. Although if you are looking for any bitterness as some stouts do have, you will not find it here as the lactose sugars hide any hints of bitterness quite well.

Out of curiosity I looked up the score on Beer Advocate and was surprised to see that it didn't score as high as I thought it would. I am most definitely enjoying this one a lot and feel that this is a more than solid representation of a milk stout. If you like stouts, regardless of the style, Southern Tier 2X Stout is a must try! Personal 9/10 and for a milk stout 8.5/10