Harveys Imperial Stout

Brewed by Harveys
Style: Imperial Stout
Lewes, England

Medicinal chocolate aroma with a hint of iodine. Looks like a deep black oil that sucks in the light like a black hole. Spicy, chocolately first impression with a sourness and bitterness that soon fades. Roasted coffee beans and cabernet soon follow. The finish is dry and smooth and doesn’t kill the palate. Unusual and distinct.

2001 vintage. Pours jet black with absolutely no head. This beer has a funky flemish sour aroma. You would never believe this is a stout from the aroma alone. The aroma is more like a wine than a beer, with the sour grapes and only a touch of licorice malty aroma. With its dark color, you would think this was balsamic vinegar. The flavor is incredibly complex. There is an initial sourness that is also just a bit sweet, with a bitter finish. I swear it tastes like a cross between an imperial stout and a flemish sour. Gotta give it props for the unusual taste. The texture, however, is terrible - very oily with hardly any carbonation. Overall, this is a strange beer - great, intense and complex flavor, but everthing else about it sucks.

2001 vintage. Pours a dark black with a thin head than dissapears almost instantly...little to no carbonation. Aroma is like sourdough bread and vegitable soup. The flavor has a vegitable broth,sherry, and sour taste...not very pleasant...more like a vegitable/spiced beer than an imperial stout...nothing much besides the appearance reminds of the style at all. There’s an absence of maltiness, sweetness...just salty, sour, and bitter.

2001, 330ml bottle, quaffed from a Brasserie de l’Abbaye des Rocs snifter. Pours with a minimal, espresso like head. It is Cadillac black. The winey aroma is something I would associate more with a Oude Bruin than a Imperial Stout. This evil looking brew, has a distinct chocolate sourness, that is unique and refreshing in itself. Seems to be one of a kind.

2/6/05. Poured out of 330 mL bottle, bought at Liquorama in Upland, CA some long-ass time ago, probably 2 1/2 years. 1999 Vintage. Black-brown in color with no head at all on a rough, thin, and slow pour. Texture looks oily, even leaving a viscous, mostly transparent coating on the glass with each tilt. Aroma is excellent, containing thick hot fudge, some port (without much alcohol), and an undercurrent of bright, vinous grape-like fruitiness. Flavor is comparatively mild but no less intriguing with a subtle red wine character, dryingly wood-like bitterness, and soft bittersweet chocolate, lightly acidic and corky. Incredibly oily, slick, full body with a bold trail of deep roast and an overwhelming fudgy black malt essence. Slightly sour in its roastiness, but the acidity is also fully complementary to the vinous notes, making a perfect, unlikely marriage of char and wine. Finish is quite dry despite the slickness, gritty and almost tannic with a twiggy chocolate presence and intense sweet roast, even suggesting cherry cordial. A marvel and a conundrum, so unique and perhaps still a bit too challenging to fully enchant.

Bottle at the GBBF, Kensington Olympia 05/08/2005 Black very strong in alcohol and fruity. Some bitterness and a lasting roast finish.

Bottle, labelled as ’A le Coq Imperial Stout ’. Vintage 2000. Pours a murky dark brown, almost black, with a spare diminishing light-brown head -- looks like an oil spill. Aroma, whoa, at first I wasn’t sure I liked it at all but as it opened up and I got used to it I quite liked it. There’s strong dark fruit, a wine-like smell, a strange hop aroma, some sourness, soy sauce and alcohol. The flavour definitely takes getting used to as well but I did and I liked it: very roasty, again a wine-like taste, dark fruit, coffee, salt and a bitter aftertaste -- nice and complex. Full bodied with an oily texture. This is definitely an acquired taste but I really liked it -- it’s interesting and original and I hope to have it again.

forget sherry and/or brandy, this is the new one. very rich and silky look and taste. deep bitterness is enticing though could be to strong tasting to others.