Americas Double Bourbon Barrel Cherry Imperial Stout

Brewed by Americas Brewpub
Style: Imperial Stout
Aurora, Illinois USA

GTMW 2009: Deep brown with mahogany hues topped by a thin but lasting frothy tan head and left good lace upon the glass. The aroma has notes of cherry juice (both sweet and sour) as well as cherry pits, some vanilla and oak bourbon vapours, chocolate and toasted malts, hint of anise and molasses, and even some marshmallow too. The taste has a wonderful balance of tart cherries and heavy dense sweet malts with a boozy bourbon kicker. The finish is a tad oaky and spicy which adds to the flavor profile. A bit of black malt astringent notes as well. The mouth feel is rich and oily, soft and as mentioned a bit astringent upon the long finish. Overall a well crafted fruit imbued stout that has no one dominate character, melds well upon the palate.

On tap at the brewpub - This poured an opaque, almost-black dark brown body with some mahogany around the edges with a short, bubbly brown head. It had an aroma of sour cherries, burnt chocolate, Bourbon, vanilla, old wood, dark fruit, and angry spices. Boozey, chocolatey, sweet-sour, dark malt, cherries, vanilla, charred wood... what am I writing about? Oh, yeah - the flavor. The finish is tart and funky and a tad hot. Some dandy craftsmanship from brewer Mike Rybinski.

(Draught) Pours an opaque black body with a thick tan head. Aroma of cherry, bourbon, oak, chocolate, and vanilla. Flavor of cherry (too sweet), oak, bourbon, and chocolate. Unbalanced. Would like to see them cut down on the cherry extract some.

On tap at GTMW. Poured black with a creamy, well-retained dark tan head. The aroma picked up sour cherries and oak over well-roasted chocolates.. a hint of oxidation in there as well.. got my attention. The flavor, on the other hand, was sour, funky, and messy.. sweet and sour cherry notes laced throughout, amped up by boozage over a bed non-descript black malts.. long sour cherry and oak impression on the hot finish. Sour and oxidized on the palate, lacking direction, but full of heat.. didn’t go down smoothly.

Sample #10 from GTMW. Here’s the living proof that beer means God loves us, who cares if Ben Franklin said it or not. Smells like a still-warm chocolate covered cherry with cherry cordial in the center. It doesn’t smell like a beer, but I don’t care. Solid black, no head after a couple of seconds in the taster glass. A little bit of sour cherry, a lot of chocolate, and almost no beer to the taste. Again, I don’t care. I feel chocolate running all the way down my throat in a most sinful manner. Not much bourbon barrel to it either, probably the cherry takes it all up.

On tap at GTMW 2009
I have never had any beers from America’s Brewpub but with a name like this I could not resist swinging by during a lull between special tappings. It was worth the stop. Even though this is a poor example of how to make a barrel aged imperial stout it still makes an excellent example of how to create a well rounded beer. This makes a good reference point for what constitutes "average" in the world of big beer. Unfortunately I think this may be one of those special releases that only comes out at festivals.

Aroma / Appearance - The oily black body had nice legs on the side. Sweet oak, vanilla, chocolate, anise, and plum were assertive despite the flawed shape of the GTMW glass. Held together with malt it deserved more time than I was able to give it.

Flavor / Palate - The taste is very similar to what you would expect from the nose. The flaw that keeps it from being a 4.0+ is a strong astringency in the finish. Otherwise balanced if this hotness could be fixed this would be right up there with Thunderfoot and many other regionally acknowledged imperial stouts.