Imperial Stout Tournament of Death Recap

The FatCat team went into the coliseum and faced imminent doom.  We’ve returned from our journey stronger beer geeks than we were before we departed.  We have attained enlightenment and wish to share our experience with our fellow beer geeks.  Please use what you learn carefully as misuse of your imperial stout knowledge could lead to devastating pantsless results.  You have been warned!

This tournament was so much fun that I can’t wait to do it again at the end of this year.  Hopefully I can get my hands on some other imperial stouts and make the next tournament even more exciting.  Round 1 of the tournament was a no frills look into the world of the imperial stout.  It was a testament to the beauty that can be constructed with malt complexity alone.  There was no barrel aging, bourbon barrels, or cocoa nibs.  Just pure and simple malt goodness.  To me, a big complex imperial stout can not be rivaled by any other style of beer out there.  The Czar is that beer which embodies this simple malt beauty. 

Round 2 of the tournament was an introduction to the imperial stouts with bells and whistles.  Bourbon barrel aging and cocoa nibs attempt to coax ever more complexity out of this great style.  We didn’t find any real stars in this round but I guess it’s a reminder that frills don’t make a good brew.  You just can’t barrel age something to make it good.

Round 3 was the heavy weight battle.  This is the round where the hype gets tested.  Just because something is uber limited doesn’t make it a masterpiece.  As I mentioned in my previous post, consuming any of these brews individually would lead to a high rating for any of them.  Considering the hype and/or the limited availability alone, one will usually elevate the perceived greatness of these types of brews.  I wanted to remove this artificial feeling of greatness and get to the results.  What better way to do that than pit these all star brews against each other back to back.  The result was the confirmation that Parabola is truly a work of art.

Which of the limited brews are worth the hype?

Firestone Walker Parabola – Absolutely YES in every way
Goose Island BCBS – YES, not as good as I would have thought but not bad either
Founder’s CBS – NO, buy regular Breakfast Stout
Stone 2011 Imperial Stout – NO, good price but was not as good as it’s rankings
Goose Island Big John – YES, moderate price and fairly easy to get

My Overall Rankings:

Grand Champion:  Firestone Walker Parabola

2.  Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti

3.  Avery The Czar
4.  Goose Island BCBS
5.  Old Rasputin
6.  Schlafly 2008 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
7.  Stone 2011 Imperial Stout
8.  Founder’s CBS
9.  Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged BORIS
10. Goose Island Big John
11. Dogfather Barrel Aged

Are you not entertained!?!?

Imperial Stout Tournament of Death: Round 3

Here it is, the pinnacle of our Tournament, Round 3, the all star round.  Here we pit the biggest and baddest brews I could find against each other.  All the hype goes out the window and we see if these brews can live up to their reputations.  I wanted to throw in Oak Aged Yeti as sort of a control group.  It is one of my favorite imperial stouts and is easily available.  Will the Yeti stand up to the likes of Parabola, CBS, or Goose Island?  This is not a shootout and thus not a blind tasting. We sampled each beer and ranked them in the order we preferred drinking them.  The same FatCat veterans came over and we wrapped up the first ever Imperial Stout Tournament of Death!  Here are the results.

FatCat’s Ranking:

Firestone Parabola #1
Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti #2
Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout #3
Schlafly 2008 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout #4
Founder’s Canadian Breakfast Stout #5

Greg’s Ranking:

Firestone Parabola #1
Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti #2  
Founder’s Canadian Breakfast Stout #3
Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout #4
Schlafly 2008 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout #5

Super Dave’s Ranking:

Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti #1
Firestone Parabola #2
Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout #3
Schlafly 2008 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout #4
Founder’s Canadian Breakfast Stout #5

The Winner:  Firestone Walker Parabola

The Parabola came in with high expectations.  It was my favorite beer of 2011 and is always highly touted in reviews.  The Parabola proved the hype to be true and destroyed the competition.  Parabola starts with a sweet and boozy nose.  Although the nose is not as big as the Goose Island, Parabola does make a statement.  The brew starts with good sweetness and then the bourbon starts hitting early in the palate.  The bourbon leads into a good oak character followed by a fair amount of bitterness.  For me the reason this brew was better than the others was the balance between the sweetness, bourbon, oak, and bitterness.  Some of the other brews were huge in sweetness and booze but that was it.  While the others relied on brute force to accomplish the job, the Parabola was a Kung Fu master.  It hits your palate in 4 different places before you realize what happened.  This is one of the brews I would consider a work of art.

Second Place:  Great Divide Oak Age Yeti

This was my dark horse in the tournament.  The Yeti doesn’t rely on hype, giant sweetness, or bourbon to court you.  It instead employs a solid malt character with good semi sweet chocolate notes.  Then a solid bitterness kicks in giving this imperial stout an almost refreshing quality.  The Yeti’s secret weapon is the oak character that coats your entire mouth as you enjoy this brew.  The oak, chocolate, and bitterness play a delicious symphony in your mouth.  Once you start drinking Yeti you never really want to stop.  One drink leads to the bottom of the bottle and that leads to a happy beer geek.  This widely available brew just beat out some of the biggest hyped beers available in our area. 

Third Place:  Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout

One word can describe this brew and that is HUGE.  The nose has huge sweetness and booze.  The mouthfeel is huge with a big syrupy character.  Sweetness is huge, supplemented by bourbon on the finish.  One description that came to mind while I was drinking this was “milk chocolate”.  It tasted like I was drinking a Hershey’s bar.  Luckily the smoothness of this brew pulled the milk chocolate character together with the bourbon finish and made it very enjoyable.  I think some age will level some of the sweetness off and make this brew a little more decadent. 

Fourth Place:  Schlafly 2008 Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout

This one surprised me as to how big it was.  The nose was just as potent as the Parabola and gave the Goose Island a run for it’s money.  The taste was big in sweetness with a moderate bourbon finish.  It was like the Goose Island’s little brother.  The mouthfeel was a little thin compared to the others which hurt it in the standing.  This had some prominent molasses character mixed in with the sweetness that added to its complexity.  Overall this brew was impressive especially when you factor in availability and the relatively low price point.

Fifth Place:  Founder’s Canadian Breakfast Stout

I think the group had the highest expectations for this brew and it was the biggest disappointment.  In my opinion this brew was almost exactly the same as the regular Founder’s Breakfast Stout.  It had the same coffee presence with the bittersweet chocolate mixed in.  About the only difference I could tell was the maple syrup in the finish.  Instead of having the regular breakfast stout dry finish it had the maple syrup sweetness on the end.  I wouldn’t consider this an improvement. 

Conclusion:

This round was awesome!  All of these brews were outstanding in their own right and we were very happy beer geeks by the end.  If you tried any of these brews on their own, any of these brews would be impressive.  However that's not what we were trying to accomplish here.  I wanted to know how these brews compared to each other and if they were overhyped.  I'll wrap up all three rounds in a separate post and we'll get to the bottom of this tournament.

Cheers!

Imperial Stout Tournament of Death: Round 2

As I’m sure everyone has been waiting with baited breath here is Round 2.  The stouts are getting bigger and badder with barrel aging added to their arsenals.  I had to make a quick substitution because I forgot to buy a Schlafly Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout, so I threw FatCat’s own Bourbon Barrel Zombie Apocalypse into this round.  This is not a shootout and thus not a blind tasting. We sampled each beer and ranked them in the order we preferred drinking them. I invited some FatCat veterans over and we got through round 2 of the tournament. Here are the results.

FatCat’s Ranking:

Bourbon Barrel Zombie Apocalypse #1
Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged BORIS #2
Goose Island Big John #3
The Dogfather Barrel Aged #4

Super Dave’s Ranking:
Bourbon Barrel Zombie Apocalypse #1
Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged BORIS #2
The Dogfather Barrel Aged #3
Goose Island Big John #4

Greg’s Ranking:
Bourbon Barrel Zombie Apocalypse #1
Goose Island Big John #2
Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged BORIS #3
The Dogfather Barrel Aged #4


The Winner:  Bourbon Barrel Zombie Apocalypse
FatCat’s brew reigned supreme in this round.  This was my first attempt at “barrel aging” anything.  I used some toasted oak chips and soaked them in Elijah Craig bourbon.  I aged some of my Zombie Apocalypse on the oak chips for about two months and then bottled.  The outcome is a bourbon laced imperial spin kick in the face.  The nose has the same molasses character as the regular version except this version sports a beautiful bourbon aroma.  The brew has a decently thick mouthfeel of which I would like a bit thicker.  The taste is a little sweetness followed by a prominent black licorice note.  Intermingled are hints of oak and a slight alcohol burn from the bourbon.  There is also a bit of sour in the middle of the palate giving the impression of some dark fruit flavors.

Second Place:  Hoppin’ Frog Barrel Aged BORIS
This brew was big and sweet.  Usually I’m a fan of “big and sweet” but this one was overly sweet.  This is one of those brews that had the dreaded chocolate milk character.  There was some wood character followed by some fruit tastes in the middle of the palate.  Bourbon character was present but very subtle. 

Third Place:  Goose Island Big John
I previously reviewed this one and got a weird Elmers glue taste.  My internet detective work revealed this weird character was most likely alcohol bitterness from an immature brew.  I stowed this one away for almost a year and pulled it out for the tournament.  First off I will say the weird glue taste is gone so I would venture to say it was alcohol bitterness that caused the initial funny taste.  The second thing I will say is this brew was the odd man out in the competition.  It was the only one not barrel aged but instead was aged on cocoa nibs.  Big John started with a big nose of chocolate and malt sweetness.  The mouthfeel was big and did complement the sweetness of this brew.  The sweetness was balanced by a big coffee bitterness which started to hit you in the middle of the palate.  There was a bit of chocolate on the finish but was fairly subtle. 

Fourth Place:  The Dogfather Barrel Aged
This one was the least favorite of our group.  It had a prominent sour character that the others in this round did not.  Some of us perceived a sourness while others thought the strange character was bitterness.  Whether it was truly a sour character or just a byproduct of bitterness, this was the most bitter of all the stouts.  It was so bitter that Super Dave referred to it as a “Black IPA”.  The sourness/bitterness dominated and was followed by a bit of coffee-like quality.  There was a dark chocolate character in the aftertaste.  Overall this was an awkward barrel aged stout.  If you recall my previous review, the regular Dogfather was really weird in the fact it had an overwhelming cherry character to it.  Laughing Dog pulls weird stuff in their brews and the Barrel Aged Dogfather is no exception.

Conclusion:
The first round was outstanding, this round not so much.  I was largely disappointed in this round of the tasting.  The bright spot is FatCat’s brew took top honors but the bad thing is I was expecting the other brews to be better.  My homebrew is neither terrible nor award winning but I would expect breweries “special release” imperial stouts to be more exciting than this.  Never fear round 3 will be one for the ages as they say. 

Upcoming Round 3:
Firestone Parabola
Schlafly 2008 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
Founder’s CBS
Oak Aged Yeti

I also have a bottle of Goose Island BCBS that may sneak its way into the tournament!

Hope everyone had a safe New Years and look forward to sharing a craft beer filled 2012 with everyone.

Cheers!

Imperial Stout Tournament of Death: Round 1

Here it is what we have all been waiting for…FatCat’s Imperial Stout Tournament of Death round 1.  What better way to ring in the holidays than to drink tons of imperial stout.  In case you’re behind on the cards, imperial stout is FatCat’s absolute favorite beer style in the world.  As part of my holiday celebration I’m going to enjoy some of the best stouts I could find all year.  This is not a shootout and thus not a blind tasting. We sampled each beer and ranked them in the order we preferred drinking them. I invited some FatCat veterans over and we got through round 1 of the tournament. Here are the results. 

Warning:  Beware of Zombies!

FatCat’s Ranking:
The Czar #1
The Zombie Apocalypse #2
Old Rasputin #3
Stone 2011 Imperial Stout #4

Greg’s Ranking:

The Czar #1
Old Rasputin #2
Zombie Apocalypse #3
Stone 2011 Imperial Stout #4

Super Dave’s Ranking:

Zombie Apocalypse #1
Old Rasputin #2
The Czar #3
Stone 2011 Imperial Stout #4

The Winner:  The Czar 
The Czar starts off with a huge nose begging you to dive in the thick malty goodness.  The nose starts with big malt sweetness with hints of bittersweet chocolate snaking its way out of the top of the glass.  The mouthfeel is very thick and chewy.  The taste mirrors the nose with big malt complexity and bittersweet chocolate on the finish.  This was definitely the thickest tasting of all the brews in this round.  The malt sweetness layers nicely and is big and complex.  There were subtle caramel notes up front followed by darker malt sweetness.  This leads to the signature bittersweet chocolate and some bitterness in the finish to bring the brew into acceptable balance for the style.  This brew is a real treat and is one of my favorite imperial stouts out there.  A bonus is it is reasonably priced and widely available in our area.  I love the Czar!

Second Place:  The Zombie Apocalypse 

This is one of my first homebrew attempts at an imperial stout.  I threw the whole gauntlet of ingredients at this one including some molasses.  As with most of my stuff this brew came out under carbonated.  One day I’ll figure out my kegging system and adequately carb something.  This brew is black as night and thick.  The nose is anise and black licorice with some sweetness playing around.  The mouthfeel is nice and thick but not as thick as the Czar.  The taste is big with hints of molasses and black licorice.  There is some initial malt sweetness that dives into the black licorice/molasses finish.  There are not any chocolate notes, of which I would prefer, but there is adequate sweetness to  balance the molasses twang.  The molasses twang in the middle of the palate mellows as the brew warms.  The finish is nice and clean with a slight hint of molasses in the aftertaste.  Overall this is a nicely complex brew with a big body to boot.  I’m happy with the outcome of my brew and it faired well in this tasting.

Third Place:  Old Rasputin 
When you mention imperial stout this is one of the first brews that pops into my head.  It is the quintessential, widely available, cheap imperial stout.  This is the first imperial stout that I experienced which pushed me further into my craft brew addiction.  Old Rasputin was by far the most bitter of all the brews in the tournament.  This also had the thinnest body of all the others.  The brew starts with some malt sweetness and moves to a drying bitterness.  There was a bit of astringency from the roasted malts but this tended to balance the maltiness in the other parts of the brew.  It had an almost metallic quality on the front of the tongue.  Overall this was not a very sweet stout, it was dry in the middle of the palate and bitter on the finish.  Old Rapsutin had dryness/bitterness which gives it coffee-like qualities throughout the palate.  I think this brew is very good and is one of the most refreshing examples of the style.

Fourth Place:  Stone 2011 Imperial Stout

This brew had the least interesting nose of all of the brews.  There was some hop character poking through with a minimal malt aroma.  The Stone had a decent mouthfeel but was fairly thin overall.  There was a fair amount of bitterness and a slight hop character in the finish.  The taste was flat in character compared to the other brews in the tournament.  It had some malt character but couldn’t compare to the others in complexity of taste.  I was super excited to try this brew and was very disappointed it was not as good as I had hoped.  Sad thing is this limited release stout is less interesting than imperial stouts available to us on a daily basis.

Extra Brews with abbreviated notes: 

Expedition Stout

The overwhelming bitterness had weakened from just a few weeks ago.  Still the bitterness was over the top for an imperial stout in my opinion.  The bitterness did subside as the brew warmed.  Dave and Greg were very impressed with it.  The complexity is developing with age and I can’t wait to see what this will taste like in 6 months to a year. 

Leinenkugel’s Big Eddy

This one had a smoky character not present in any of the others.  Good complexity with good mouthfeel.  The smoky character was dominant but the malt seemed to stand up well to the smoke.  This brew is very interesting and I want to taste this brew when I have a clearer head.  Stay tuned!

Conclusion:
Why do I love imperial stouts?  Each of these stouts was completely different in flavor profile than the others.  The complexity of this style is amazing and it’s hard to find two imperial stouts the same.  Every bottle is a new delicious adventure and that’s what keeps me coming back to this style.  Imperial stouts I think I love you! 

Cheers!

FatCat's Imperial Stout Tournament of Death!

Tis the season to stuff your face with tons of food and how else better to wash it down than with an obscenily big beer.  Imperial Stout anyone?  I've been stock piling for this event all year and will now administer a Mortal Kombat style tournment to the death.  I've split up 12 Imperial stouts in three brackets.  The brew will be going head to head for a winner in each bracket.  I wanted to put all 12 beers in one big shootout, but team FatCat talked some sense into me.  I now understand it would be a suicide mission to taste all 12 beers in one day, so the brackets were created.  Stay posted for the the results and beware that the start of the Zombie Apocalypse could spawn from this event.  I may throw some other stouts in unofficially and let you know how they stack up as well.

The Combatants:

Round 1:
Old Rasputin
Stone Imperial Stout
FatCat's Zombie Apocalypse
The Czar 2009

Round 2:
Hoppin Frog BORIS Barrel Aged
The Dogfather Bourbon Barrel Aged
Big John
Schlafly Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout

Round 3:
Firestone Parabola
Zombie Apocalypse Bourbon Barrel Aged
Founders CBS
Oak Aged Yeti