North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout

From the bottle. Pours a late night black with a small creamy head. Aroma of thick carmalized malts. Flavors of carmel and molasses. Coats your mouth with its thick and creamy texture. Its more of a meal than a drink and I loved it.

Bottle, with countless thanks to bitbucket. Pours inky black, impenetrable black, with a 2-finger tan head on top that laces in a decidedly above average fashion. Nose is sublime, if understated; roast malt, coffee, chocolate, blackberry fruit, tar, floral, ever so slightly sweet. Palate is, if anything, better than the nose, I am a man who invariably rates the aroma higher than the flavor, not so in this case, good though the aroma is. Flavour is rich, creamy and velvety, fantastic coffee and chocolate palate, rich without seeming overtly boozy, in fact not boozy at all! So flavorful and creamy, one of my favorite stouts to date, dynamite stuff.

Not perfect, but awfully damned close. Not a great head, but everything else was supurb - aroma, appearance (like a dark, black ink), and taste. Really want more of this, but no longer available here in B.C. Also got to love the name as well as the excellent label.

Pours none more black with a thick and creamy tan head. Leaves a ton of lacing. Simply beautiful. Smells strongly of coffee and chocolate. Hop presence found in the taste doesn’t have much place here. Tastes of..coffee, chocolate, and a nice bitter hoppy finish. This is definitely a hop-forward stout. Thick bodied and medium carbonation with a warming sensation. Very good, very easy to find, but as it warms the hops tend to overtake the other flavors making it more difficult to drink as I prefer hops take a backseat if any seat in my stouts.

Oily, warming, coffee, chocolate, treacle, bitingly bitter, but smooth and comforting. A great beer, and an excellent RIS.

Beautiful dark stout that was perfectly balanced. Creamy tan head with dark brown, almost black, body.

Bought 12 of these to share at a party. Drank one early and ended up stashing the rest for myself. Just another great stout. Still prefer the Stone Imperial Russian and the Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti but this is definitely in their league. Wish I was drinking one right now.

Black magic. World class. Tending towards the British style of RIS, with lovely dark fruits, caremel and bittersweet chocolate and a perfectly balanced roast character, but this beer has a vitality and freshness that I’ve never got from any of the famous Brits... so incredibly drinkable at 9%abv.