Fat Alberta
Throwback Brewery

Fat AlbertaFat Alberta
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From:
Throwback Brewery
 
New Hampshire, United States
Style:
Russian Imperial Stout
ABV:
10%
Score:
85
Avg:
3.78 | pDev: 17.2%
Reviews:
28
Ratings:
101
Status:
Active
Rated:
Aug 23, 2019
Added:
Aug 10, 2011
Wants:
  24
Gots:
  21
Chocolate Peanut Butter Imperial Stout made with cocoa husks and peanuts

Fat Alberta is a flavorful, chocolate peanut butter imperial stout that will make your taste buds sing! Even if you think you don’t like stouts or dark beers, we bet that Fat Alberta will win you over with her rich, chocolate roasty flavors and her intoxicating peanut butter aroma & finish. It’s a dessert in itself!

For the foodies out there, there are a lot of creative ways to use this beer. Make an ice cream float. Add Alberta to your brownies. Make your own ice cream flavored with Alberta! Let us know what you come up with!

78 IBU
Recent ratings and reviews. | Log in to view more ratings + sorting options.
Ratings by t0rin0:
Photo of t0rin0
Rated by t0rin0 from California

2.75/5  rDev -27.2%

Mar 03, 2013
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 3.27 by Jsalz21 from New Jersey

Aug 23, 2019
Photo of FFreak
Reviewed by FFreak from Vermont

4.14/5  rDev +9.5%
look: 3.75 | smell: 4 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4
16 oz can....first canned RIS I've had. Rich, roasty, black as night with a ring of tan head and almost no lace. Nice balance of flavors, with roast malt, bitter dark chocolate and some richness from the peanuts. Excellent mouth...not overly viscous. Overall, this is a really nice beer....in a can!
Jul 31, 2019
Photo of sulldaddy
Reviewed by sulldaddy from Connecticut

3.99/5  rDev +5.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 4
Sampling a cellar temp 16 oz can of this brew and pouring into a snifter. The beer pours jet black with some tan to brownish color dense creamy head of 2 cm. This foam fades to an edge layer and some wispy clouds on the surface of my glass quickly after the pour.
The aroma is rich dark chocolate and some roasted notes with husky and peanut butter notes mixing in to remind me that this is not a peanut free zone. Smells of real peanuts not artificial and sweet. No hops at this point and no tip off for the 10% ABV either.
THe first sip reveals a smooth textured average body with fine and spacious carbonation that rolls gently across my palate on each sip.
Flavor is similar to the nose with dark chocolate, some roasted malt, a bit of peanut butter cup and some husky dry roasted peanut flavor on the finish. This is less sweet and then some bitter coffee ground note too that shows up on the swallow. No really hop character and no warming or booziness on this brew.
Its a pretty good PB stout that hides its ABV well. I still like the PB flavor and nose of Gunners Daughter the best. this beer is worth a try though.
Jul 03, 2019
 
Rated: 3.5 by oline73 from Maryland

Mar 24, 2018
 
Rated: 3.75 by atlbravsrno1 from Maine

Feb 07, 2018
 
Rated: 4.08 by Gkruszewski from New York

Feb 03, 2018
 
Rated: 3.83 by LoudRed from Massachusetts

Feb 03, 2018
 
Rated: 4.13 by Exeggutor from New Hampshire

Jan 10, 2018
 
Rated: 4 by Dirk_Chappelle from New Hampshire

Dec 31, 2017
 
Rated: 4.29 by Nugget40 from Massachusetts

Dec 27, 2017
 
Rated: 4.24 by rjp217 from Massachusetts

Dec 17, 2017
Photo of NolaHopHead
Rated by NolaHopHead from Louisiana

4.28/5  rDev +13.2%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.25 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25
Bottle. Peanut buttery with a soft creamy feel.
Feb 05, 2017
Photo of Smakawhat
Reviewed by Smakawhat from Maryland

4/5  rDev +5.8%
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | overall: 4
Poured from the bottle into a large snifter glass.

Faint tan topped head, slightly taller than a finger, but with good retention. Does dissolve though to the top of the beer and leaves quite a big bubbled collar. Weeping legs, spotted lacing, sitting on top of a dark brown walnut body.

For a peanut butter brewed stout which has been the thing of the day these days… The aroma goes more for a nice fruity and complimentary ester. Grape jam and peanut making for a sandwich quality. Hints of light roast complimenting things out as well. Nice and balanced, but also nicely played on the aroma without going to extremes. Chocolate angle though is quite indistinct if non existent.

Palate brings a much different animal. Sweet grape and raspberry like flavors with a nice cheap box of chocolate quality. Not quite silky feel on them mouth, but some faint jammy quality expressing itself.

I like this, but it's very different and not a big peanut butter chocolate quality. If anything it has great fruity like character and faint nut that makes it quite unique. Nice experiment.
Jan 01, 2017
 
Rated: 3.75 by Ladgaga from Massachusetts

Dec 27, 2016
Photo of ManapuaMan
Reviewed by ManapuaMan from Massachusetts

3.85/5  rDev +1.9%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75
It's a peanut butter stout! Everyone put away your high standards of imperial stout excellence and adjust your expectations accordingly - it's a peanut butter stout! You reach for it when you want to drink peanut butter and chocolate beer. Black with a thin, light brown kinda-grey-ish head. You have to drink this at 45-50 degrees; too cold and the PB will be muted. Aroma of peanut butter, baker's chocolate and heavy roasted malt. Lots of peanut butter and chocolate, but it's not quite sweet or bitter. Occupies a middle ground which could be perceived as either subtle or weak. Soft mouthfeel with lingering chocolate and boozy heat; the 10% ABV is there. Enjoyable beer if you know what you want.
Apr 04, 2016
Photo of lordofthewiens
Reviewed by lordofthewiens from New Mexico

3.55/5  rDev -6.1%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 3.25 | overall: 3.5
This beer was a very dark brown color with no head.
Aroma of peanut butter and chocolate, mostly peanut.
It tasted like a Reese's cup.
It had a cloying sweetness to it.
Not a beer I'd want to drink again.
Feb 17, 2016
Photo of ichorNet
Reviewed by ichorNet from Massachusetts

3.77/5  rDev -0.3%
look: 4 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 3.75 | feel: 3.75 | overall: 3.75
Having just reviewed Throwback's new chai-spiced porter recently and, in said review, recalling that I've had only a few of their offerings, I decided to pick up a bottle of their peanut butter chocolate stout, Fat Alberta. The format is apparently different from how the beer was offered before: this is a 16.9 oz "royal pint" bottle, where I believe before it had been bottled in 22 oz bottles. I paid $10 for this, whereas it looks like people had paid about $15 for the bigger bottle. I think this is probably a fairer format and a better pricing scheme, as the beer is fairly strong (10%) and features some adjunct ingredients. This bottle is dated with a sticker on the bottom that reads "FA-10 12/22/15."

The look as this poured was pretty conservative, with a deep, dark stout pour capped by a light mocha head that settles to a single-finger ring in the glass. Lacing is soapy and ephemeral, but it's definitely there. Not bad at all. Bubbles quickly pop on the surface each time some beer is poured into the glass, so there's a little activity, but it definitely clears out pretty fast. Not sure if it has something to do with the peanut butter used? On the nose there's moderate diacetyl notes, which actually come off as a bit appreciable here due to the fact that this is supposed to be a beer on the slicker/sweeter side of things. There's something weirdly artificial/"chemical" about the nose as well... it's very oily and sweet but I can't place it. Maybe a bit like vanilla and milk caramel as well. Not much in the way of chocolate or traditional, roasty stout notes, but it's pretty good somehow. Definitely in the realm of "sweet stout" instead of a traditional big stout with added flavor components. I pick up a good amount of generic peanut butter as well, and that's definitely nice if you're into that thing.

On the palate, this is a confusing beer because it leads off with a sugary sweetness that fades into a dry yet smooth peanut butter-y finish. There's very little else here... maybe a tiny bit of roast and cocoa, but it's all kind of taken a backseat to the intensity of the peanut butter. This is definitely very similar to a Reese's cup in alcoholic beverage form. I don't think it has enough stout notes to really be considered as an imperial stout proper, as the focus is certainly more on the flavorings here. This reminds me of something Southern Tier would make as part of the Blackwater series, and I bet that was a point of inspiration for the Throwback brewers. ST tends to make very robustly flavored bigger stouts which usually have a lot of sweet notes on top of the base beer, tending to actually mute the base, just like this does. The only thing I can really compare this to, though, is Foolproof's Peanut Butter Raincloud, a similar beer with a dark porter base that uses peanut butter as well. It's a bit drier and subtler about how it utilizes the PB flavoring, and I kind of prefer that (I've gone back to that beer multiple times; it's a huge winner in my book, for the record), but I'm having trouble really saying I dislike this because it's definitely up-front about what it is.

The finish on this is actually quite satisfying and has a dry-roasted peanut flavor that really makes each sip work well, allowing me to kind of overlook its bizarre misgivings and to give it the benefit of the doubt despite it being pretty weird and super heavy-handed about its adjunct ingredients. Some more base beer would really help this breathe a bit and stop it from being nearly-cloying, but I don't think it's really a bad drink. Balance issues are common in small production breweries, and it looks like this has been tweaked a bit over time, so I hope they dial it in more. I'll probably return to it in the future just to see how it's changed.
Jan 15, 2016
 
Rated: 4.4 by laurapompeo from Massachusetts

Dec 28, 2015
Photo of JebBeerFish
Reviewed by JebBeerFish from New Hampshire

2.91/5  rDev -23%
look: 4 | smell: 3 | taste: 2.75 | feel: 3 | overall: 2.75
I've had the 2013 and the 2014 Fat Albertas. I'm a fan of peanut flavored beers. Throwback is a local brewery and I'd like to give this a better rating but I can't. The 2013 was better, less sweet more dry roasted peanut flavor. The 2014 had a weird sweetness to it, that my drinking buddy thought gave it a jelly additional taste. I found the 2014 to have less peanut flavor. The 2013 was the better beer, slightly roasted coffee flavor, minimal dry roasted peanut flavor. The 2014 bordered on being bad. There are many better peanut butter beers out there; Liquid Lunch, Big Gruesome, Sweet Baby Jesus. I won't be buying this again.
Oct 12, 2015
Fat Alberta from Throwback Brewery
Beer rating: 85 out of 100 with 101 ratings