Admiral Gravitas
Blue Owl Brewing

Beer Geek Stats
From:
Blue Owl Brewing
 
Texas, United States
Style:
American Imperial Stout
ABV:
9%
Score:
+2 ratings needed
Avg:
3.78 | pDev: 8.2%
Ratings:
8 | reviews: 1
Status:
Inactive
Rated:
Jul 29, 2020
Added:
Apr 02, 2017
Wants:
  0
Gots:
  1
Noble, proud, and decorated, Admiral Gravitas is a mythically big beer with a ton of character. It’s thick, luscious, and warms the cockles.
81 SU
Recent ratings and reviews.
Ratings by GarbageMan10:
Photo of GarbageMan10
Rated by GarbageMan10 from Texas

3.83/5  rDev +1.3%
look: 3.75 | smell: 3.75 | taste: 4 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.75

Feb 23, 2018
More User Ratings:
 
Rated: 4 by RiceOwls27 from Texas

Jul 29, 2020
 
Rated: 3.69 by sd123 from Georgia

Mar 13, 2019
Photo of Jugs_McGhee
Reviewed by Jugs_McGhee from Texas

3.08/5  rDev -18.5%
look: 4.25 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | overall: 3
CAN: 12 fl oz. Standard pull-tab. Blue and orange-brown label. No listed ABV or canned on date. Nabbed on-sale for $1.49 at a beer store in Austin, TX.

"Sour imperial oatmeal stout."

APPEARANCE: Pours an exquisite dark gilded tan head ~5cm in height with wonderful creaminess and thickness to it. Takes a good 5+ minutes to recede. Great colour for a head and very inviting.

Body colour is a predictable opaque black.

True to the style in every way, though I suppose it could be richer and more vibrant still; a darker head wouldn't hurt.

AROMA: I do get some lactobacillus sourness and twang from the aroma, which obfuscates the more stout-like aromatics I was expecting. I do pick up on some chocolate malt and dark malt when I really look for it, but it's tough to find. No roasted barley or charred/burnt notes surface.

Aromatic intensity is mild.

TASTE: More sour than stout-like, which is frustrating. I just get clean lactobacillus twang, mild acidity, and...very little beyond that. Some suppressed chocolate malt on the finish, I guess, but all the stout flavours you'd want are masked by that pesky sourness.

No microflora, barnyard notes, bacterial complexity (e.g. sour apple), oak, or wild yeast flavours are present, so it isn't much of a sour, and the lack of dark malts, roast, charred malts, et al. makes it not much of an imperial stout.

The result is a simplistic shallow beer that tastes like the worst of both worlds in terms of its style hybridity, but it's not bad tasting - just a bit insipid for what it is.

TEXTURE: Creamy, smooth, wet, a bit silky & chewy, unrefreshing, acidic, and medium-bodied.

OVERALL: It drinks easier than a beer of its ABV ought to given that the sour mash flavours drown out all the imperial stout flavours, but I don't know that that's a good thing. Compared to The Bruery's sour imperial stouts, this is pretty lackluster, and I don't know that it's fair to Blue Owl to compare it either to other sour ales or to other (rigid) imperial stouts, but it fails on both counts to match the quality even of widely distributed expressions thereof (e.g. Victory Storm King, North Coast Old Rasputin, Great Divide Yeti, or on the sour ale side Rodenbach, any Jolly Pumpkin sour, etc.).

Sour mashing to add complexity to an already complex style like imperial stout is an interesting idea, but this attempt at doing so has had the opposite effect - it's simple if not a bit insipid. Still a highly drinkable beer, but not one I'd reach for again.

C+ (3.08) / ABOVE AVERAGE
Mar 09, 2019
 
Rated: 4.18 by Magery from Kentucky

Dec 29, 2018
 
Rated: 3.72 by Pro_Magnon from Texas

Dec 25, 2018
 
Rated: 3.78 by Gagnonsux from Texas

Jul 04, 2018
 
Rated: 4 by Karibourgeois from Texas

Apr 02, 2017