Cigar City Humidor Series Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout

Brewed by Cigar City Brewing
Style: Imperial Stout
Tampa, Florida USA

Serve in Snifter

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Bottle from Damico. Outstanding. Pours a black color with a caramel colored head. More creamy head than standard Zhukov. Aroma of chocolate, cherries, and cedar. Some slight roast. Sweet chocolate taste with slight cherries and roast. Nice bitter layer. The cedar rounds out the finish nicely - a gentle spice from the cedar. Love it. A big thanks to Damico for this one.

Entering old rates. 75cl handfilled bottle @ CCB, sampled @ RBWG Orlando 2010. Couleur noire foncée obsidienne col léger moka. Ressent de suite ce profile boisé et épicé du cèdre qui ici donne une profondeur et bouquet très agréable. Arôme est prononcé comme une boite de cigare le tout sur des notes maltées. En bouche, bière épaisse qui garde le profile original de Zhukov et profite du traitement du cèdre qui laisse une trace épicée et boisée. RIS qui garde toute sa complexité, un profile riche en malt et chocolat avec pas mal de notes grillées et caramel. Ressent une pointe de malt fumé voire de feuille de tabac.

This poured a very very dark brown with a dark tan head. Aroma was lots and lots of cedar, dark chocolate, roasted malt and a bit of a vegetal pepper note. Flavor was not as much cedar as the aroma, but its still definitely there. Taste was sweeter chocolate with light roast and light dark fruits. Good but I prefer the other versions that i’ve had better.

Bottle from brewery. My bottle says Humidor Series Imperial Stout; ratebeer insists this is that beer. So, sure. This beer, is sour, more like a cherry stout than I would have been expecting. The alcohol (11 ABV on bottle) is very, very powerful. I have nursed this over 110 minutes and have half a small snifter to go. Cedar? Yep. This beer also has chocolate, coffee, sour cherry, burned fruit, scorched brown sugar and paint thinner aromas. If this is in fact my first taste of the famed Marshal Zhukov, I think it’s illuminating that a 3.7 rating is probably an earnest and objective analysis and if I had known it was the vaunted Marshal I probably would have been unknowingly inspired to up the rating. Look, it’s a fine beer. But there are an awful lot of good imperial stouts out there, including Storm King which I can have whenever I want by the six-pack. Is this better than Storm King? I can’t help but think sometimes that Cigar City ratings (and Sweetwater, and Terrapin) are affected upwardly by the fact that the good people in Florida and Georgia are just not used to anything so flavorful and can’t believe they know make it in their home states. That sounds pretty snotty and I realize that. But while the emperor does have clothes - CCB makes several outstanding beers - they are not infallible and maybe there are some things that are coveted that are, while excellent, not as uncommon as it seems.

Had this at the 2011 Pittsburgh Ratebeer Christmas Eve Eve Tasting. I have no idea why beerman6686 let me taste this, he is a glutton for cheapdark punishment. Dude, we were getting ready to leave and then he pops this monster, wew. It was not as viscous looking as I was expecting. When you pour it, it has a very good looking head, one of the darkest I’ve ever seen on a beer, I’m talking rally dark brwn choco moose. Aroma is not overpowering. The saving points for this beer is the appearance and the the aroma. Tasting? Taste is just plain alky roto-tilling impy stout. Big nasty flavors are destoying my taste buds like the front of a Kiss Destoyer album cover. Over the top and down the sides of my tongue goes nasty nellie. Some burn in there. Rude and nasty, perfectly on style, heheh. Nagging finish like an old mate who has worn out her welcome. Wew, same with finish, wew. Dan you are so rude to leave me with this taste in my mouth all the way back home to beaver county. You got it coming.

Jet black, cardboard head. Nose is very dry cedar, beyond the spice of a rye grain, draws roast out to emerge above chocolate. Flavor similar but less aggressive, more standard CCB sweetness with still some lingering malt and chocolate but held in check by the wood. Probably one of my more preferred CCB stouts, the wood here adding a balance and dryness completely atypical of the wort I was expecting.

Dark black, nice dark milk chocolate head. Aroma is holy shit cedar, peppery, too much. Taste is nicer, chocolate, roast, some cedar, lightly peppery,

Pours a handsome oily black with dark head. Aroma is cedar, coffee, and roast. Taste is super over the top cedar and not much else. Cedar overpowers every other element of a fantastic base beer. Nothing but cedar, cedar, and more cedar... ahhhh viscous cedar sludge!

750 at a blind taste test, big cedar on this one. THe mouthfeel and textrure is awesome. Very thick and stoutlike. THe cedar is overwhelming however. There also is a strong bottle variation on this one. Shame, half the cedar and this would be a grand fuckin slam

(750ml from drowland). Pours black with chocolate head. Aroma is cedar, cocoa, roast. Taste is sweet with some roast. Lots of cedar. Full bodied with slick texture. Good.