Left Hand Wake Up Dead Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout

Brewed by Left Hand Brewing Co.
Style: Imperial Stout
Longmont, Colorado USA

Serve in Snifter

send corrections   |   shelftag   |   edit barcodes   |   add pic

22 ounce bottle - $5.99 at Olde Crabapple Bottle Shoppe in Alpharetta, Georgia. Appearance: Pours out a dark brown, near black body with a finger high level of beige-toned foam. Head recedes fairly fast. Smell: Middling roastiness, spirit-soaked wood, and cheap, sugary chocolate in the aroma, though there’s a faint, peculiar stink lingering in the background as well as some nostril and eye-stinging fusel wafts. A disheartening scent. Taste: Woodsy, roasty and delivering a fair degree of sugar with a cloying sweetness to it. Very, very minor tastes of chocolate and light brown sugar follow by a spicy kick of anise oil and an odd, off-putting hint of baked rubber furniture feet. Sad fruits. Takes on a chalky tongue-coating quality and develops some boozy off-off-brand Baileys-like flavors. There’s some astringency on the swallow and for the heated, bitter, drying finish. Mouthfeel: Medium-plus. Medium-low carbonation. Overall: Maybe not exactly the peddled poison I see touted on here, but it’s certainly not good or satisfactory. Okay, scratch that, as it grows rather grating as you work your way through the bottle, which I never saw as it ended up a drain pour. I wonder if there was any nervous hand-wringing or nail-biting at all as this stinker drove off in the delivery trucks. My opinion of Left Hand has taken a bit of a hit today.
Earlier Rating: 9/10/2007 Total Score: 3.5
(2007 Bottle) Appearance: Pours a dark brown, near black body with a dense, pillowy head. Smell: Boozey aroma of chocolate and roasted grains. Strong notes of oak. Taste: Flavor of dark roasted barley, with some chocolate, maybe even some anise. It’s got quite a sour, vinous quality to it. A fair amount of warming alcohol is evident on the oaken, roasty finish. Mouthfeel: Medium-full body. Medium carbonation. Very warming. Drinkability: The heck is this? It’s a decent stout, sure, but it’s no where near as lush and inviting as that 10th Anniversary version.

Bomber bottled 3/13/12 poured into a duvel tulip. Pours a midnight brown/black with a thin tan head that shrinks down with nice lacing. Aroma is coffee, chocolate, raisin, vanilla, and oak. Taste is toasted barley, bitter chocolate, coffee, plums, raisins, cherry, vanilla, and cream. Medium mouthfeel and a tad over carbonated. Really good.

22 oz bottle. Pours dark black. Aroma of plum, chocolate, toffee, coffee, oak. Flavor is licorice, toffee, coffee, wood, earth, herbal. A good heavy stout with character.

Black bodied, creamy tan head. Malty base aroma with proper hop back-up. Toast, figs, butterscotch, cinnamon muffin, toffee and earthy. Refined and without any wood distractions. Sweet taste with Belgian like complexity, but enough hops to keep this going. Long aftertaste. Excellent brew. Much like a quad rather than an impy. Glad they send this over to Europe! (67cl bottle, reasonably priced)

Hoo-ah! What a bold flavor, sort of a licoricey coffeey taste. Pours jet black with a slight purpleness similar to Dogfish Head Palo Santo Marron. Slight lacing but little head. Picked this up because the glasses were priced 50% off so it was a no brainer. 10.2% ABV so it hits hard. Tasty but obviously strong so this would be an occasional treat. "A full bodied Russian Imperial Stout" from their website.

Very dark red-brown with miniscule tan head. Aroma not too strong, caramel, dark red fruits, a little chocolate. Medium body and somehow a little thin. Slight carbonation, not much alcohol. Flavors roasted malts, coffee, raisins. Flavors are pretty good but somehow the whole thing not entirely working and as others have noted seems kind of thin and not quite right for an imperial stout.

Appearance: burnt browns and liquid charcoal. Small fizzy tan head fades into a thin collar with nothing in-between. Garnet glints at the bottom. Swirls along the sides with no lace.
Nose: chocolate candies – the kind one is filled with liqueur such as Kahlua. A bit fizzy. Vanilla along the edges – more extract than root. Chocolate cherry vanilla cola. Generic woodsy rusticity. A bit simple.
Palate: creamy and fizzy like cherry vanilla cola. Grabs back of my throat with vanilla extract and Kahlua filled chocolate candies. Raw boozy woods followed by caramel, vanilla, and milk chocolate all melted into one. Hint of tartness and tannins in the back. A bit quick to hit with the flavor and equally quick to fade into nothing. Rustic in the middle and boozy and spicy. Fizzy sweet cola stickiness never really disappears from around the edges – a bit of a distraction.
Final Thoughts: pretty good but a bit muddled and rough around the edges. Flavors were there and they were good but they just didn’t quite meet in harmony.

Nice burnt roasted malts, wood, coffee, and licorice. The body is medium and finishes with a slight black olive smack. I like it.

Pours black with a thin dark tan head that fades fast. Aroma is strong on the booze and bitter coffee, some dark fruits, mainly raisins. Taste is nice with some coffee and chocolate and raisins, a bit of smoke. Palate was kinda thin but this impy stout is all in all still worth trying.

Bad bottle alert!! Anyone else? This just tastes off in every sense. Smells off. A bit of coffee and a funky taste in my mouth.

22 ounce bottle that poured a thin dark brown color with aromas of bourbon, wood, vanilla, cocoa, chocolate, and feint hint of maple syrup. Flavors are the same, the flavors played well with each other, even though it was thin on the palate, this was still a pretty decent beer.