Mighty Imperial Ale
8 Wired Brewing Co.

Pours a cloudy brown color. 1/4 inch head of an off-tan color. Decent retention and slight lacing. Smells of sweet malt, hint of roasted malt, alcohol, slight yeast, hint of wheat, and a hint of smoke. Fits the style of an American Strong Ale. Mouth feel is sharp and clean, with an average carbonation level. Tastes of sweet malt, roasted malt, alcohol, slight yeast, hint of wheat, and smoke. Overall, complex, but not well blended, weaker appearance, and the body is lackluster.

 

 

Pours a murky super dark orange-brown with a foamy tan head that settles to wisps of film on top of the beer. No lacing on the drink down. Smell is of toasted malt, caramel, toffee, brown sugar, smoke, and wood aromas. Taste is much the same with smoke, wood, caramel, brown sugar, and earth flavors on the finish. There is a medium amount of bitterness on the palate with each sip. This beer has a lower level of carbonation with a slightly crisp mouthfeel. Overall, this is a pretty good beer with a nice balance between the smoke and sugary characteristics all around.

Serving type: bottle.

 

Pours hazy reddish amber, with a modest beige head that quickly dissipates, leaving slight lacing.

The aroma is quite herbal, with a sweet edge. Sweetness comes form berry fruits, while the smoke is very tame. Light mustiness, and coca, mix with oak. Malt seems to be there primary player, with toffee and pumpernickel bread.

This beer has a sweetness, similar to Belgian stouts, lots of caramel and berry fruit, and faint smoke laced spruce. Bittersweet chocolate is front to back, but subdued throughout. The finish is quick and mild.

Medium to full body, with a slick texture. Alcohol is present, but well controlled, while the carbonation is modest at best.

While it seems odd to describe a strong ale with so many, "faint, modest, tame," modifiers, this beer is quite likeable non the less. I enjoyed it in the park, on a cool sunny Autumn Day.

The ingredients used were noticeable and were as in the description, but this bottle seemed almost flat and that greatly changed the whole picture and not for the better. Pity. What was there was pretty good.

Poured from an 11.2 oz bottle into a pub glass.

A: Pours a dark caramel brown with a thin khaki head which quickly dissipates into minimal layer but with nice lacing.

S: A nose full of sweet caramel maltiness dominates.

T: Some smokiness, with an oakey maltiness up front. Spices through the middle with a little booze on the back end. The hop bitterness comes through pleasantly after a bit.

M: Medium bodied with a smooth carbonation. A little on the dry bitter side, prompting more drinking.

O: An interesting imperial ale, to be sure. I enjoyed drinking it and continue to impressed by 8 Wired.

 

 

 

Poured from a 33cL bottle into a Teku glass.

A: Red-brown and murky. Virtually no head.

S: Loads and loads of hops. Citrusy, piney, astringent, and bitter. Wood as well.

T/M: Yum! It's rich and oaky and lightly spicy. It's an odd, complicated beer. The massive hop bill makes it bitter, but so does the smoked malt and the inescapable woodiness. It's hefty, substantial, dense, and malty. Kind of sweet, especially on the end.

O: I bought this for $9 because I thought it would be interesting, exciting even. It certainly is interesting. Worthwhile. Might not go looking for more, but a worthy sipper.

 

 

 

 

This is a decent, but hot and rather bland strong ale.

Dark reddish brown, it has a small tan head slowly thinning to foamy ring and wisps.

Aroma is brown bread, dried fruit, fruitcake, bread crust, hints of rum - a nice, characterful and engaging aroma that promises much.

However, the taste does not live up to the aroma's promise. It is spicy and rummy, a bit hot in a boozy manner. A mild spicy bitterness dominates the finish mostly because there's not much esle to go with it but an overall vague barley character. It's rather nondescript and one-dimensional. The feel is creamy and a touch zesty.

 

 

 

 

Appearance: It has a nice deep brownish/amber color to it. It has a nice beige head that dies down somewhat fast and leaves some lacing.

Smell: The aromas definitely give out hints of brown sugar, sweet caramel, toffee, some dark fruit, light oak and faint smoke.

Taste: Like the aromas, it has some brown sugar, caramel, toffee, some dark fruit, a slight earthy bitterness, smoke and some oak.

Mouthfeel: It has a low carbonation with a nice overall balance and feel.

Drinkability: It's a very smooth drinkable beer accompanied by good flavors and aromas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pretty thickly hazed light-medium red color with a flaming orange in the edges, this beer develops a full finger of tan head, pretty dense and rocky. It displays pretty good retention and leaves somewhere between moderate and heavy patchy lacing behind.
It's clear from the nose this is a malt-forward beer. There's lots of a toffee-like sweetness along with caramel and dark currant. It's also doughy, with more dry biscuit than either toasty or bready notes. There's also a touch of bittersweet cocoa I wasn't expecting at all. There's a little bit of char underneath it all and, more than the previously mentioned supporting notes, a very steady and strong booziness.
The taste very much follows suit, mostly sweet malts with biscuit, lots of toffee, with the char still there but a bit more mingled with the overall character, especially as something like some wood comes out. Again, booziness is very much present, but again working more toward the overall character. There is a certain piney something coming out I might attribute to hops, as well as a touch of leaf. Dried and sugared fruits linger.
The body is a sturdy medium with a steady crispness, though as the session goes it falls off slightly at the end of the sip. it's fairly smooth as well.

 

 

Hazy mahogany brown colour. Small light tan head. Fair head retention. Not that pretty.

Citrussy and almost bright. Lacking the malt, oak and smoke aroma that I expect. Actually a bit subdued.

Woody and bitter. Some citrus. Touches of peat. Light sweetness but not malty.

Medium body with moderately-high carbonation.

For me this lacks richness and a complexity. I managed to try the tap version at Beervana and it seemed so much thicker and richer than this.

 

 

Pours a clear red, deep deep red color. Nearly no head just some white foam around the edges of the glass.

I'm not sure how to say it beyond "it smells red". Caremel sugars and malts mixed with american hops come off clearly.

Mighty is a BIG beer, there's not doubt about that one. Huge amounts so sugar mixed with great amounts of malt. It is without a doubt making every effort to be called an imperial american style beer.

Harsh yet wonderful hops aggressively bite the tongue with sheets of sweet sugar malt caramel rolling behind it. This is somewhat the classic american flavors I tend to dislike but done so perfectly they nearly pull it off.

Mighty doesn't break ground. It's what you'd expect from a well executed but not impressive imperial red. One of the things that always made 8 Wire a great beer for me is that their hops and flavors were just a bit different. This is rather uncreative beer making. I can't fault it as it's well done, but it doesn't reach the heights of truly unique or great and as such it isn't something you have to have. Just something worth giving a shot, but it's not priced to move so buyer be ware.

330ml brown bottle purchased from Beer Cartel in Sydney. Shared with my good mate @tobeerornottobe.

Pours a very clear, but very deep red colour, perhaps like a heavily oxidised rosé, or an extremely light pinot noir. Head is a very fine ochre colour, witting flat and smooth across the glass. Lacing forms in specks and hebrew characters. Body is exceptionally thick, and hold plenty of powdery carbonation. Looks very good.

Nose is... surprisingly dead. Slight oxidised waste water, a bit of flat extract, perhaps a hint of raisins, and certainly booze—but booze in a lackadaisical, uncaring way. It certainly doesn't arrive with purpose. There's a slight fudgey caramel character, but it's disappointing in the extreme. As is the nose in general.

Taste is better, certainly—perhaps because the booze was always going to be prominent and forthright here. And forthright it is: big, slightly crass heat burns through the centre and the back, while the caramel characters do what they can to cushion the blow, giving some breadth the the palate. Otherwise, it's quite sharp—better than the nose, but still hot without purpose.

Feel is ostensibly thick, but with a thin roaring piercing character that bites it all the way back.

Overall? Well, what the hell happened, 8 Wired? In general, Søren and his guys do wonderful, exciting things. But this is hot and messy, thin where it should be rich. It doesn't have much complexity at all, and ends up more akin to a heavy malt liquor than to a big rich, chewy Imperial Anything. Extremely unimpressed.

This has been in the fridge for a while now but thought I'd give it a go as its cold again tonight and it pours a clear orange amber hue with a one finger head and sporadic clingy lacing,the smell is basically a combination of oak,toffee,honey and caramel and that's about it,the mouthfeel is medium bodied with average carbonation and the tastes are oak,oak,caramel,oak,toffee,Redgum honey and yes you guessed it oak and overall it's an oak bomb and hue base beer gets lost with the ageing and a dissapointment for me cheers.

 

330ml bottle poured into tulip 10/6/13

A clear dark amber with a few bubbles feeding a short lived finger of tan foam that leaves just a few polka dots around the glass

S spruce and juniper hit me first followed by plenty of brown sugar both burnt and crystal, soft caramel, raisins soaked in rum and sugar coated, woody notes and booze with some fruit I can't quite place

T I'm getting smoke in the mouth that I didn't really notice on the nose, the smoke and sugars don't get along as well as I 'd like but the smoke mixes well with the woody notes, boozy and sweet, tastes pretty good but the nose had much more going for it

M thick, syrupy and sticky on the lips, enough bubbles to keep it from feeling flat and a little heat on the way down with a strange smokey aftertaste

O I was really digging the nose but it couldn't quite keep that trend going throughout, please don't get me wrong I'm liking this brew but the I find the smokey notes strange and it needs some time to mellow out

Manuka smoke? I'm not too sure, jaggery I seem to remember as a sugar Half Pints used to brew $ellout $tout, worth a try and let me know if you figure it out

330ml bottle. Made with some new-to-me Australasian ingredients, and aged on Yankee oak. Oh, and refermented in the bottle.

This beer pours a slightly hazy, deep red brick amber hue, with one average finger of loosely foamy, bubbly beige head, which leaves some rather random splattered lace around the glass as it evenly subsides.

It smells of mirror-world caramel malt - heightened by the regional toffee simulacrum, jaggery - concentrated black fruit (plum, wildberry, and cherry, mostly), a rising biscuity wet graininess, mild cocoa and earthen licorice notes, a very soft vegetal smokiness, and menacing, lurking booze. The taste is lightly bready caramel/toffee malt, musty cane sugar, pithy dry chocolate, stewed mixed-berries, smoking forest-fall, and buttery, vanilla-tinged American oak, with a strong, burgeoning, but still not at all edgy alcohol warming.

The carbonation is quite low-key, just a minor supportive hiss, the body a somewhat sludgy medium weight, and not really that smooth, with the smoke and booze taking up to much space and time. It finishes on the sweet side, but mostly tempered, as the sugar, unlike the wood treatment, is not American, and the smoke and alcohol astringency coming 'round to bear.

One big and woody, and sedate (pick your meaning) ale. The barrel treatment really does run the show here, but has the good graces to not manifest as overly sweet, and also allows the other smoked goods a turn at the table. An interesting take on a strong ale, even more so given the general lack of hoppiness.