Samuel Adams Imperial Series Imperial Stout

Brewed by Boston Beer Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Boston, Massachusetts USA

Serve in Snifter

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Pours dark black with short lived tan head. Smell is dark fruit, sweet chocolatey malt. Taste is of licorice, charred chocolate and some hoppy bitterness and light alcohol. Medium to full body and slightly oily with soft to medium carbonation. Kind of a chalky burnt bitterness that lasts. Wasn’t too crazy about this one.

UPDATED: AUG 3, 2009 Bottle. Pours an opaque black body with a quickly disappearing, thin brown head. Nice aroma of sweet, dark malts along with hints of chocolate and coffee. Flavor is not as impressive as the aroma, and is more of the same with an odd metallic or mineral taste. Medium bodied with a light carbonation. Charred malt finish with a slight metallic tone.

Poured black with a thick brown head. Aroma is malt and molasses, but not nearly as strong as I was expecting. Flavor is strongly of coffee with pronounced bitterness. Could use more sweetness. The bitterness lingers unpleasantly. Mouthfeel is full and creamy. Overall, not bad if it’s your only choice of Imperial Stout.

This beer is like alcoholic chocolate. Good stuff, but the alcohol feels forced.

Black pour with a dark tan head. Aroma is some bitter chocolate malt and some licorice. Flavor is very bitter roast with some notes of chocolate and anise. pretty run of the mill. more complex malt layers would make this rather nice as the roast is robust and the small amount of anice is nice. However it remains a little over simple.

Sampled at Made in the Shade 2009. Pours a viscous black with very minimal chocolate lacing - no real head. Roasty aroma, some alcohol, and definite malt sweetness. Taste is mildly roasty, and extremely sweet. Luckily, Sam Adams threw in enough hop bitterness to counteract the cloying sweetness for the most part. Ends up being a rather middle-of-the-road stout.

Pours with the darkest head I remember seeing in a long time. The smell gushes out of this beer, had a full on smell of it while the tulip was still on the counter. A bit overpowering up close obviously. Palate suffers from the brew having too much residual sugars. The buckets of malt are burnt to a crisp and the whole package comes off as being a single flavor assault.

Good beer, but not great. Pours a nice thick, dark black. Aroma of coffee and chocolate. Taste is good, but just a touch too sweet, not unlike a Scotch ale. Needs to be pulled back just a bit. There are much better imperial stouts out there.

Black with a good foamy tan head. Aroma was smoke,grass and chocolate. Flavor was dark chocolate and roasted malt.

pours a very deep brown...not quite black with a thin mocha colored head...retention is not that good. aroma is slightly roasty and burnt with a bit of dark fruit and tobacco. flavor is very burnt and hoppy with a touch of fig. mouthfeel is a bit thin for an impy and very dry in the finish. i wouldnt turn it down but this is not that great as impys go.