Samuel Adams Imperial Stout:
Good evening (read that in a Vincent Price voice, k?). Well greetings from your intrepid beer guy from the deep south this week. Today I bring you reviews from Natchez, MS, a very beautiful town that over looks the Mississippi river high on bluffs that make you imagine strategic advantage from the Antebellum era (wait, that was Vicksburg). Anyway, we continue our Samuel Adam’s week with another entry in their imperial line, Imperial Stout. I have no clue how this bad boy pours (no bar at the hotel to borrow a glass from) so we are going old school and drinking it straight from the bottle. The beer drinks smoothly with a very creamy texture and heaviness that is present in most stouts. Sporting an ABV higher than most bottles of wine (9.2 ABV) this beer falls firmly under the sipping category. As if the texture and ABV weren’t enough to make you sip this, the taste will. The bottle label hails of tastes of “dark chocolate, coffee and anise.” Coffee, I can see, most stouts have an under taste (at the minimum) of coffee and chocolate to an extent though I’m not tasting that here. Anise, a licorice flavored seed does over power this beer to an extent on the back end, the front end is almost a watered down liquid smoke flavor that turns into anise. Not a bad beer really, though I’m not sure what to classify this one as. Most beers, to me, fall into three categories, before dinner, during dinner or after dinner. I don’t see where this one would fall; being to strongly flavored for before or during dinner, to heavy for during or after and the taste and texture really fit after dinner but this one might make you ill if you drink it after dinner. Maybe splitting a glass with a special someone over a piece of chocolate something or other might be the best use for this beer, the sweetness of the chocolate combined with the licorice and coffee taste might just make an excellent combination.