Cigar City Final Push Imperial Stout

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

Serve in Snifter

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Growler at RBWG 2013. Pours oily brown with a faint, brown head. Huge, deep espresso aroma, some burnt malts. Big sweet flavor with dark, juicy berries, rich coffee, dark sugars. Full bodied with soft carbonation, faint warmth to finish, some syrupy dark sugars, more espresso, dark berries. Good stuff. Not a typical American impy stout.

A: The beer pours thick and black with a somewhat small mocha head. S: Enormous amounts of coffee on this one. Tons of roasted malt and chocolate with more and more coffee. A nice vanilla note as well as a touch of caramel and toffee. T: Vanilla and roasted malt make a brief appearance before being usurped by the incredibly powerful coffee flavors. Some creamy dark chocolate along with a touch of caramel sweetness. M: Medium to full bodied with a smooth feel on the tongue. O: Just awesome. Easily the best Cigar City beer I’ve had.

Another gem courtesy of KAN! Poured basically black with a lovely cap of dark tan head. The aroma picked up a whole bunch of delicious coffee and roasty black malts, with touches of vanilla, nutty, and earthy notes.. excellent nose! The flavor was somehow a notch better, and consistent with the hype machine.. delicious coffee throughout, accented by burnt chocolate and molasses.. heavy roast, but the balance held perfectly.. more coffee and warm boozy undertones on the finish.. absolutely no complaints. Heavy-bodied with moderate carbonation on the palate.. a lot of coffee, and even more deliciousness!

Pours milk shake like consistency fudge brownie with lasting firm mocha head. The aroma is bold rich hugeness pulsing with perfectly highly roasted coffee to go along with rings of sweet dark fudgy chocolate and dark roasted malts. This is rich decadent aromatic yum. The taste is rich dark roasted coffee somehow conveyed on a near creamy mouthfeel pulling up supporting flavors of velvety rich dark chocolate, roasty malts and some burnt malts. Wow, balance – depth – decadence – D-Lish!

Tap at the BA Hunahpu release 9/24/11. Thanks to drowland for saving me a pour of this rarity. You are the man!

Pour is typical Zhukov, an ink black SRM that produces a Martian red head looking extremely similar to used motor oil. Bubbles and all. Lots of glass staining but not a lot of head retention and lacing. Nose is quite nice. I’m not the biggest coffee fan, but can appreciate having hazelnut, vanilla, cinnamon apples, and cocoa powder in the nose in lieu of near DMS like qualities and sharp, gritty roast. Rich and soft in the nose thankfully. For taste, I still think the palate is what shines above taste. Palate is rich and oily. Extremely thick but no cloying sugars like you would expect given the staining. Instead, the coffee does pack decent bitterness (no astringency) but there is still such a hefty dose of coffee acidity creating a tart lemon profile in the back end. Certainly yummy, but someone may see this as simply extremely thick coffee rather than imperial stout. Could use more bitterness and could work on the appearance department. If you are going for this whale, I hope you enjoy coffee explosion.

Pouring at the Blind Tiger for Mike’s 50th birthday extravaganza. Pours a deep jet black, with no head. I’ll have to agree that this one may have been better on nitro, and that’s a rarity since I usually think nitro is overused. Huge coffee on the nose, blows away any other coffee beers I can think of for the amount of “I’m pretty sure this is coffee, and not a beer with coffee in it” that I was getting. Deep roast, just loads of it, one dimensional really, nothing but roast and coffee. Like drinking an iced coffee, sort of too much. Long coffee and roast. Light alcohol on the finish. Still awesome, but maybe a bit too much.

In short: A big fat viscous chocolaty stout with an almost espresso-like coffee character. Excellent (even if a bit overrated).
How: Fresh growler. Sent to me by GodOfThunder, consumed within days of receiving it. Thanks a lot Jay
The look: Pitch black body topped by a small brown head
In long: Nose is showing a roasted coffee beans over a chocolate cake. Given the hype of the beer I expected a more explosive aroma. Body is thick and viscous as hell. Somehow, the body felt more viscous than the base Marshall Zhukov, which is strange because usually I find that the coffee version of a big stout (example: Meph Addict vs Mephistopheles) makes for a dryer more roasted sensation. Taste is pretty straightforward, a big fattening rich chocolate cake with fresh coffee beans. I’m sure not familiar with the flavor of the much talked about Kopi Lowak coffee variety but to me the Final Push coffee character was a bit more espresso than with other well known high-quality coffee stouts (Speedway, Peche Mortel, etc.). Of all the quality coffee stouts I’ve had I’d say that Final Push was the most chocolaty I’ve had. Actually I don’t think the coffee outshines the chocolate or vice-versa. Alcohol is a bit apparent but it is fitting for this dessert beer. Also some green herbal notes. Carbonation was relatively smooth, I would have preferred a more active carbonation to increase drinkability but maybe it is because it was a growler consumed a week after it was filled. So despite my long rambling, all I can really say about this beer is that it is a rich chocolate cake and coffee with some alcohol warmth and light green herbal notes. Even after drinking a full growler I really cannot add anything. It is a straightforward but highly enjoyable sipper. In a blind tasting I don’t think it would score higher than the less hyped widely available quality coffee stouts out there (Speedway, Peche Mortel, etc.) but it remains an excellent example of the style. And in case you drank the beer but don’t know why the beer is named “Final Push”… well, you don’t want to know, just like you don’t want to know if your mother ever kissed your goodnight after giving your father a blowjob.

#4500, also moves me to #7 Stoutie (currently at 714 rates). RBWG, Draft at Redlight-Redlight, without a doubt the best beer i’ve had all weekend and honestly in a very long time before that. Give that stout and more so coffee toned stouts are my favorite style this should not come as a surprise, furthermore i’m dying to have Kopi Lowak Alesmith given that i enjoy the base beer slightly better. Pours an abyss of a body with a thick black body and a coffee tan head that coats the glass. What a rich coffee esk aroma that reaches your senses as its pouring, like coffee brewing. Espresso, coffee roastiness, dark underlying fruits but subdued to rich dark chocolate tones, the ultimate dessert. Milkshake like hints, etoh is completely masked and only benefits the complexity of this ale. Chewy coffee espresso and a rich chocolate and coffee finish. Utterly fantastic, THANK YOU CCB!!

Entering old ratings. Draft @ RedLight RedLight RBWG. Une couleur d’un noir profond donc on découvre une mousse intense et épaisse foncée. Zhukov est déjà en elle même une imp stout complexe. On retrouve dans cette version, toute la bonté du malt, note de chocolat et vanille, parfois allant aussi sur un aspect de feuille de tabac qui met en avant une forte note de torréfaction et de malt grillé. Ce qui fait de Final Push au delà du jeu de mot du nom de la bière c’est le caractère unique que donne ce café. Ce dernier propulse Final Push vers des sphères qui font que l’on ne veut pas voir la fin du verre. Une bière riche dont le profile se développe à quasi température ambiante et qui ne se boit pas, mais se déguste.

Giant aroma of coffee, dark and roasty, dark fruit is there but mostly sharp acidic expensive poop coffee with just a hint of dark chocolate. Pours jet black, no head, no lace. Not that great looking. Sharp strong coffee, very acidic, almost overly cofee-e. Dark fruit, dark chocolate and more acidic overly assertive coffee. Super full borderline syrupy body, very soft carb. Super acidic and bordering on unpleasant. There are people rating this a 5? Seriously? Maybe they were drinking something else? Maybe I’m on purple drank? But this isn’t that good.