Most Most Premium
Gigantic Brewing Company

Pours very dark brown, nearly black, with little to no carbonation and little head. Aroma is complex, woody and chocolate. Taste is flat, with little to no carbonation, very woody with bourbon and dark fruit characteristics. Body is medium and ABV is well noticed. A good introduction to RIS.

Look: It pours black with a dark brown head. It has low head retention.

Smell: It has strong bourbon aromas with chocolate, roast, and wood. There is a strong port element with some nuttiness to it.

Taste: It has strong bourbon flavors with roast and dark caramel. It is a little bit nutty with wood and port. It has a faint liquor like quality to it.

Feel: It has a full body that is thick with strong alcohol warming.

Overall, a strong bourbon flavor with many imperial stout elements makes this a good beer on a cold winters night.

2022 bottled version, from the source.

Black with a dark brown head with good retention and lacing. The nose has dark caramel, toffee, bourbon, bitter dark chocolate, treacle, a moderate boozy note. Rather brash oak tannins are at play too. The palate opens bitter, roasty with a rather robust licorice note, fruity and noticeable, with heavily roasted grain, a molasses flavor, a bit of a disjointed sweetness. Barrel presence is more as heat rather than flavor, with mild vanilla, moderate oak and woody notes. Boozy, warming on the finish. Medium-full in body, moderate carbonation. Creamy, boozy, warm finish. Solid.

Cellared a year. Midnight black pour with a brown cap that eventually settles into a ring. Bourbon laced roast malt, dark chocolate, wet earth, char, faint dark smoky wood with a hint of molasses in the nose. Taste hits the char, earth and wood up front, before giving way to molasses, bourbon, and faint caramel and dark fruit with dark chocolate being the bridge. Body is the one issues, while warm and has great roast, it is too thin for a RIS, smooth and full though.

Black body with dark beige head with irregular grain and low persistence. Scent of chocolate, molasses, cuvette, vanilla, light roasts and bourbon. On the palate milk chocolate, caramel, vanilla, fruit cake, finish with good bitterness, acidity from toasting and gentle ethyl embrace of bourbon. Aftertaste where all the typical notes of aging emerge in former bourbon barrels. Medium body, not too velvety and viscous, medium and fine carbonation.

 

A: The beer is jet black in color. It poured with a quarter finger high tan head that quickly died down, leaving a narrow collar of off white bubbles around the edge of the glass.
S: Moderate aromas of dark and chocolate malts are present in the nose along with notes of bourbon.
T: The taste follows the smell, except that the flavors of bourbon from the barrel aging are stronger and linger into the finish.
M: It feels medium-bodied on the palate and has a touch of warming on the mouthfeel from the bourbon.
O: This stout has nice aromas and flavors of bourbon, but the bourbon is a little overpowering in the finish.

Serving type: bottle

 

 

 

 

 

 

pours very dark - not much head . very strong malty- bourbon flavors . great example of a russian stout

 

 

 

 

 

 

draught
Heavy molasses flavor. Quite sweet without enough hops to balance the profile. Not as much gravity as it looks like it would have. No noticeable carbonation.

 

 

 

Look + deep brown/black color - 1 finger head - decent lacing and foam ring remain - deep tan colored foam

Smell + a big blast of booze - sweet rich chocolate, toffee, coffee, burnt grains, and tobacco - slight smokiness - woodsy - very aromatic

Taste + huge rush of alcohol upfront - strong caramel and coffee - jumps right into smokey campfires and chocolate smores - starts off very sweet and then slowly fades into dry bitter chocolate and toffee - very flavorful

Feel + fairly full bodied, but thinner than I expected - even though it is barrel aged, it should feel a bit thicker

Overall + I thought this beer was very good. It has a lot of barrel character: bourbon drawn from the wood, charred oak from the inside of the barrel, chocolate/toffee/caramel flavors are very rich.

Serving: Bottle
Bottled: 2017


A:
Looks god-awful. Thick and black with a gray-brown suggestion of froth. Looks almost completely flat. No retention/lacing. (2.5)

S:
Really big molasses and bourbon character, cherries, cocoa. (3.75)

T:
Thick, sweet, syrupy mix of bourbon, cherries and dirt, roast walnuts, molasses and big sticky vanillins. (3.75)

M:
Thick and cloying, heavy with little carbonation and a lingering roast/booze finish. (3.5)

O:
This is indeed gigantic, though I can speak to "premiumness".
It is far from appealing when poured. What little head there is clings to the edges looking honestly like the bubbles in spit. This head seems to only be due to my violent pour. The smell and flavor are both very big and I would actually say a little messy. The smell has an old-school molasses/char profile with a strong bourbon/dark fruit presence. The flavor is similar with a monstrous barrel presence. No heat thankfully, tons of vanillins, cherry, cocoa, a hint of oxidation. Neither the smell nor the taste is a mess, but I would say both are messy. I would give straight 3.5s, but the vanillins come through really nicely and the general sweetness of the taste is actually pretty nice once it gets closer to room temp. Nonetheless, it is a little intense and syrupy-boozy for me. Great label art though. (3.5)

 

Pitch black pour looks oily in the glass, putting up aromas of molasses and bourbony chocolate syrup... Runs toward the sweet end of the spectrum - lots of booze and chocolaty molasses... Medium-full-bodied, smooth and soft, a little sticky... A solid bourbon barrel-aged stout...

 

 

 

 

 

This is a boozy mess. Looks good and smells good but it falls apart in the taste side.

 

This one pours an exceedingly dark black, with the smallest head, and no lacing. This looks nearly still.

This smells pretty burly, with roast and tobacco, oak, bourbon, dark chocolate, and espresso.

The lack of carbonation kind of mutes things here, but it's still an elegant and mostly well-brewed barrel-aged stout. The barrel character is nice, silky smooth bourbon and spicy oak, with some marshmallow, tobacco, spice, dark chocolate, and light coffee. I get also some dark black breadiness.

This is medium bodied, with a soft creamy feel, and not much carbonation. It's a definite slow sipper.

The low carbonation takes a bit to get used to for me, but there's a still lot to like here.

 

 

Pours lack as night with minimal caramel colored head. Big-time viscosity, a little lacing, no head retention

S: Much dark fruit, a touch of Bourbon, vanilla once warm, plus smoke shows up late

T: Follows the nose, a touch of booze warmth, carob & dry oakyness up front, just a little smokiness & chocolate. Woody dryness, dark chocolate, vanilla as this warms, just a little boozey barrel as well. Finishes with barrel dryness/boozeyness, a touch of vanilla & chocolate raisin

MF: Fairly chewy, low carbonation, warming

A very good Imp stout with barrel aging, I do suspect this beer would've been better 6 months or so ago, some aspects are tamped down. Drinks pretty easy for its whopping 12.4% ABV. Love this brewery, they are 4/4 in my books