Shirtless Dictator
Liquid Hero Brewery

 

 

 

Poured from a tallboy can into a Dogfish Head tulip

L: Inky black pour with 2 fingers of tannish head. Great lacing.

S: Dark fruit... cherry and plum mixed with roast sugars and grains. Coffee and cocoa.

T/F: Follows the nose. Great roasted malt character gives it a bittersweet flavor. Notes of cocoa and espresso... but I was most impressed with how they got some dark fruit notes. The whole package really works well. Finish is more bittersweet cocoa and roast. Full bodied and well carbonated.

O: A really nice Imperial Russian Stout from a local brewery that I haven't heard much about. Definitely impressed and glad I got a 4-pack so I can age some. Would love to see what this could turn into barrel aged.

Sampled from bottle

 

 

 

Poured from a 16 oz. can. And yes, that can came courtesy of the Duke of drunkenness, and creator of the canquest, woodychandler. Has a black color with a 1/2 inch head. Smell is of chocolate lactose, light coffee. Taste is chocolate, roasted malts, hints of coffee, light bitterness, alcohol is well hidden. Feels medium bodied in the mouth and overall is a beer worth seeking out.

Pours a dark brown color with ruby edges and a half finger of head. There is only mild roast on the nose. The roasted flavor is fine for a garden-variety stout but somewhat lacking for an RIS. The body is certainly hearty enough for the style.

 

 

I sooo apologize for the backlog on The CANQuest (tm)! I am back at work so the days of day-long binge drinking are sadly over (except for on the weekends). Man, I really ran through a massive amount of beer this past January to April, but that time has passed. I picked up this CAN at The Friendly Greek Bottle Shop, where I am revered as a god. No, more like ridiculed as an idiot, but I have good beer, so they tolerate me.

From the CAN: "Good Beer[,] Good Earth"; "Smooth as a Siberian hunter. Bold as a wild Russian bear. Full of as much flavor as a shirtless dictator."

It came in a 16-fl. oz. tallboy, so I should have known better than to attempt an inverted Glug, but I could not resist. Man, the speed at which the foam came rocketing up was astounding! I ended up with two-plus fingers of dense, rocky, deep-tan/light-brown head with excellent retention as well as a small amount of overflow on my kitchen counter to clean up. Color was Black/Opaque (SRM = 44), allowing light penetration only at the edges & creating garnet highlights. Nose was rich and redolent with notes of dark chocolate, brownies, coffee & light smoke. Oh my, as George Takei might say. The taste was far sweeter than many RISs that I have CANsumed. It had a dessert-like quality, as though a chocolate cake and/or brownies had been liquefied. It was very chocolaty in terms of its taste, but that was all. I no longer got the smokiness or the coffee. I CAN't really say that I was disappointed, but more like surprised. Actually, in thinking about it, this could be a great additive to cake or brownie mix! When I was in high school, I loved to cook & I even entertained thoughts of culinary school to become a pastry chef. I still like baked goods, although sweet is not my bag. Warming, this got less sweet and more towards bittersweet or baking chocolate, but where was the coffee?!? Where was the smoke?!? Awwww. The coffee was in my cup, so I began to alternate between the two & I have to say, the coffee flavors imbued the beer with something that had been missing. Finish was semi-sweet, never really having gotten out of first gear. It was kind of a one-note, either-you-like-it-or-you-don't kind of experience. I love Liquid Hero; I am a hophead, so an RIS is kind of out of my bailiwick; but in sum, this needs a tweak, IMHO.