Blackwater Imperial Stout (Bourbon Barrel-Aged)
Edge Brewing Company

 

Appearance: Pours espresso colored with a thin beige film that fades to a collar; leggy, with squiggles of lacing

Smell: Roasted, almost burnt, malt tones with a strong piney aspect

Taste: Roasted malt forward with hints of chocolate and caramel; the mid-palate brings fruity espresso and piney hop flavors; a strong bitter aspect lingers into the finish

Mouthfeel: Full bodied with low to moderate carbonation; warmth in the gullet

Overall: An interesting experiment to burnish the extremeties but the burnt flavors, the pine and the espresso clash rather than complement

Thanks, JohnGalt1, for the opportunity

Very very solid offering from Edge, 12oz can offering this year, pours pitch black, lots of charcoal and earthy roast character, espresso bitterness, raw cacao, burnt caramel, dark chocolate, toasted oak, bourbon character.

Pours a predictable black with a tan head that quickly dissipates to a nice minimal covering. The smell hits you up front with a little booziness and then combines with sweet chocolate and caramel. The taste begins with perhaps some hippy character but then a very bitter coffee taste takes over. The burnt flavor lingers throughout although caramel sweetness tries to combine in the end. Not my favorite of flavor combinations. Very minimal lacing.

Growler from Albertsons. Perfect for a cold snowy day. Dark brown pour, high fluffy dark beige head subsides to skin, leaving sticky lacing all the way down the glass. Aroma favors the bourbon, while taste adds the dark roast malts, hints of coffee and chocolate. Finishes slightly dry and plenty warm. Well rounded RIS, complimented by the BBA.

Medium black with a tan head and slight lacing. Roasted malt, sneaky hops, caramel, sweet chocolate and coffee meld with the bourbon in the nose. Taste has all of this, but the finish is very sweet and sneaky hoppy, the chocolate is sweet in the middle too. Roasted malt and bourbon reels it all in together, but it is odd, not bad. Feel is smooth, dry, light, and roasted.

 

 

No bottling date that I could find, I assume this to be pretty fresh since I'm the first review.

A: Black pour with a mid-sized chocolate syrup-colored head. Head fades quickly at first and then slows down with decent retention in the end. Little spots of lacing is all that remain behind.

S: Well that's an interesting aroma. A combination of obvious hoppiness (spicy primarily with a little citrus). Sweet chocolate and then there's oak and caramel from the barrel. Quite a bit of toffee too in fact. I can't quite tell if it's good or bad, too much going on with too much contrast. Hopefully the taste isn't as muddy.

T: Huh. Initially it's a crazy combination of bourbon caramel with SUBSTANTIAL hoppiness. Major spicy, dank hops with a background of citrus. I mean, west coast IPA style hoppiness. Not what you'd expect from an 11% bourbon barrel imperial stout. The hops are pungent and biting throughout the brew. In the middle there is some chocolate mixing in with them. When the finally calm down a little you get a really nice caramel flavor in the finish just before a wave of bitterness hits you and takes you into the aftertaste with a long lingering bitter, dry, biting hoppiness.

M: Heavy but the big hops actually dry it out and crisp it up quite a bit.

O: Well, certainly an interesting stout. Huge hoppiness dominates this one, despite the heavy malt. The barrel character is barely noticeable behind all the hops, but does provide some nice little pockets of extra complexity and flavor. Nice heavy smooth body but the biting bitterness balances it out (for better or worse). Interesting for sure, a little muddy but still plenty tasty.