Alom's Imperial Stout
Cigar City Brewing

Got this from Claaark. Cheers man!

From a 750ml bottle into a snifter
11th Hunahpu’s Day Festival 13 March 2020
Hunahpu’s Imperial Stout aged on Spanish cedar

APPEARANCE: Pours out like Huna. Pitch black and sludgy pour yields a 2+ finger, medium looking, creamy yet fizzy dark tan head with solid retention. Jet black body with no carbonation evident. Head eventually fizzes down to a ring and faint wisp but quickly becomes completely flat.

SMELL: Cinnamon, cacao, vanilla notes and hints of chili peppers, just like you’d expect from an older Huna that’s held up really well. Roasted malts for sure, with some light woody aromas from the cedar treatment. Good stuff.

TASTE: Bold start of cinnamon, vanilla cream, cacao flavors, with some decent chili peppers at the swallow. A touch of caramel sweetness with plenty of roasted, bitter character on the finish. Bold and lingering aftertaste of roasted malts, vanilla cream, cinnamon spices and some decent chili peppers linger on the palate. A bit of alcohol as well. Great stuff.

PALATE: Fuller body and lower levels of carbonation. Creamy and silky on the palate, plenty of weight, goes down slick with a touch of chili heat and finishes quite sticky. Huna at its best.

OVERALL: Excellent, and definitely just as good as the XMUCANE’S treatment. Everything you want form a Huna brew and a little bit of wood to top it off. I’ve said it before and it’s been confirmed again in 2023, if I lived in the Tampa area, I would never need to brew beer myself, go to another brewery, know the name of another brewery, go to a brewpub or beer bar, go to a beer store, ask someone else to go to a beer store, or hear that a beer store exists. This would be more than enough. Thanks again Claaark! Lovely.

Received from @roguer. Pours a standard deep, deep brown / black. Solid amount of mocha colored head that receded to a thin omnipresent ring. Aroma is fantastic. Rich chocolate and vanilla with hints of cinnamon and faint barrel. Very good smelling beer.

Taste mostly follows the nose, with a couple exceptions. The rich chocolate notes are definitely still there. The vanilla takes more of a back seat, with chili pepper taking its place. The pepper and cinnamon is used brilliantly. Either ingredient can very easily be overdone, but with this beer it adds just the right amount of spice that combined with the rich stout notes makes for a complex, very well balanced beer. Smooth with a slightly thinner than anticipated feel.

Overall very good beer.

Excellent beer. 2020 vintage, two years old. I think that helped bring down the cinnamon and spice I was thinking was going to be powerful. Well rounded, big flavors, great feel. These guys rock.

I received a bottle from @roguer in the NBS BIF #13. Poured into a tulip glass. It pours a very dark mahogany - nearly black - with a rather thin medium-mocha head and lacing that dissipated quickly. The fragrant nose offers roasted chocolate, coffee, tobacco, and subtle but noticeable chili pepper. The pepper is much more noticeable in the taste - in fact, it leads and remains throughout. It's fairly hot. There is also a strong toffee presence that I didn't smell. In the background there is dark chocolate, molasses, cinnamon, and burnt coffee. There is virtually no hop bitterness. Its mouth feel is rich and creamy with lite/moderate carbonation. It's potent at 11.6% ABV. Overall, Alom's Imperial Stout is a lot like Hunahpu’s but with significant pepper heat. It's a pleasure to drink.

Thanks to beerloco for this beer – though I’m not sure he’s been on here for years, but I met him through beer. Good dude! 750ML bottle split with my wife.

It looks just like a Hunahpu’s aged on Spanish cedar! Who would figure. The wood comes off the surface strong, subsuming everything but peppery sweetness. A nice contrast.

Alom Hunahpu’s tastes just like it’s sounded out. The cedar is the strongest component, but isn’t a homewrecker (in a good way) like it is in Jai Alai. Knotty cedar is complemented by toned down chili peppers, chocolate, slightly bitter malts, & a finish of cinnamon & enough booze to know I’m not knocking back a hot Dr. Pepper.

Adding almost anything to the original Huna is borderline blasphemy & it’s hard to improve on near perfection. This comes close to the original; an excellent beer.

 

Nice amount of chili pepper on the nose. Woody, but the Spanish cedar is not as dominant as it is in their Jai Alai variant.

Super rich on the palate. The wood adds a deep throaty maltiness. Cinnamon and chili peppers on the finish, along with more wood and some boozy heat. Toast, char, and molasses. Vanilla is noticeable but restrained; I probably wouldn't have known it was added if it wasn't advertised. Plenty of chocolate. Everything comes together in a superb blend.

Poured a black body with minimal head and khaki lace patches. Smell is slightly boozy and has notes of cinnamon along with vanilla. Cinnamon and chilis at forefront as this beer has some spicy heat but not a boozy heat (ABV is rather well-hidden). Some vanilla and chocolate underneath add an undercurrent of sweetness and beer has great balance and is an enjoyable slow sipper.