8 Wired Batch 31 - Barrel Aged Imperial Stout

8 Wired Brewing
Brewed at Renaissance Brewing
Style: Imperial Stout
Blenheim, New Zealand

Serve in Snifter

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Bottle. Very dark brown, small to average and fully diminishing dark brown head. Moderate to full, malty and sweetish aroma, roasted malt and some coffee and light licorice, some oak vanilla. Body is medium to full, malty and sweetish flavor, roasted malt and coffee, light hoppyness, light licorice some oak and light alcohol. Finish is average to long, malty and sweetish, roasted malt and coffee, light oak with some bitter herbal hoppyness, some alcohol. Sweetish IS - too sweet/too much coffee for me.

500mL bottle. Poured deeper brown with just a dusting of medium tan head sticking around. The aroma picked up heaping doses of roasted coffee, sweet bourbon, and oak, with heavy underlying warmth.. sourness from the coffee beans and oak really stuck on the back of the nose.. lots of good stuff here, but it seemed really green. The flavor opened with tart bourbon and oak, with a bunch of moderately-roasted coffee not far behind.. dry-roasted coffee bitterness and related herbal notes on the edges.. finished dry with residual roast and sourness. Medium-plus bodied and a bit more sour/tart on the palate than I was looking for.. this may improve with age, but I haven’t had too much luck doing that with coffee stouts.

650. Thanks j & a! Pours black with a dense dark tan head. Big dry roasty nose. Creamy thick sticky body. Roasty dry dark mid palate. Roasty finish.

Black with decent, creamy, brown head / Rich, intense nose of molasses, dark fruit, tobacco, chocolate, and coffee / Full body, inky, relatively smooth but with high bitterness, mostly dry with a hint of sweetness, and long finish / Flavors of dark roast coffee, bittersweet chocolate, tobacco, licorice, coconut, caramel, and oak / Very bitter, characteristic of a coffee stout, but nicely compensated for by good body and flavor profile. Outstanding.

Medium tan head blackest of pours soft medium carbonation aromas mocca coffee chocolate fudge liquorice dark fruit smooth oak barrel touch caramel the flavours strong ibu medium strong oily thick like taste mocca rich coffee chocolate fudge taste raisin and plum barrel oak so smooth a good vanilla taste through the stoutgrain note good balance the finish strong tastes overpower the alcohol content rich malts mocca fudge like dark and dry fruits swet malt lasting bitter barrel vanilla influence wonderful imperial

500ml bottle from WLV. Pours near black with tan head that leaves nice light tan ring. Aromas of dark fruit, roasted malts, coffee, and kind of like a burnt hop and wood aroma. Flavor is burnt wood, coffee, roasted malts, some chocolate, hop bitterness, and some light barrel and some vanilla notes in there as well. Does not really strike me as a BA beer. Decent not worth the price tag.

Pours viscously, slow, to a medium beige-brown head over practically black beer. Immediately upon opening, notes of tar/phenols; later more milky vanilla & new oak; smoked remains over dark malts; Very roasted taste with definite sweetness, linked to the vanilla and body, but with a seriously bitter finish. Aftertaste, however, is sweeter again. Notes of coffee, black chocolate and somehow, rosewater. Very slick to oily, well-carbonated, alcoholwarming, bit chewy. Very good I.S. Wonder about the hopgift in here, not to mention what barrels exactly were used.

I have high expectations of batch 31. This brewer may as well write his own reviews as every one seems to be a rave, but this is based upon beers that are brewed with care, attention and bucketloads of flavour. Was this beer the same? Choosing an Imperial Stout is a good thing, mainly because I love Stouts and Porters, but they are high alcohol and can carry a lot of flavours but also mask a few faults. This one though... Jet black with a dash of ruby port notes once you hold it up to the light. Mocha coloured head that crackles and settles on top of the beer. Aromas are of concentrated coffee and dark chocolate. Dare I say carob (I hate the notion of carob, but accept it here) juniper and additional Indian spices. There’s cinnamon and licorice as well. Full body and mouthfeel coincide with a dominance of bubbly effervescent carbonation which brings out the carob and licorice. It retains that bubbly chocolate bar flavour but has a certain dark chocolate maturity. The finish lingers... lingers and then becomes herbal, a little cholorphyll sour... coffeeish... and minutes later retains everything. I’m a bit disappointed that I could not mark this beer a little more critically. It has everything that I love except for one thing: 11% alcohol. However it is probably because if the alcohol that the flavour has bonded and retained with the beer. Dammit and blast. This is glorious. Beer as good as good can be.

Bottle at home. Pitch black coloured with a medium sized brown head. Roasted aroma of coffee, freshgrinded coffee, chocolate and vanilla. Sweet and roasted flavour of coffee, dark chocolate and vanilla with notes of oak and licorice. Roasted finish. Nice.

Bottle from Dranken Geers, Oostakker near Gent, Belgium. 27.04.12 consumed at Small Dole campsite near Brighton 04.05.12 Pours black with beige head, coffee and camp coffee on nose, some dark sugars. Intense coffee in mouth, smooth, with a creamy fullness in mouth. Really tangy, good hoppy bitterness afterwards, excellent stuff. A8 A4 T8 P5 Ov16 4.1