Barleys Anastasia Russian Imperial Stout

Brewed by Barleys Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Columbus, Ohio USA

Very good. A little sweet, so you can’t drink too many. Chocolate and some roasted malt flavor. Medium mouth feel.

6/28/04: Barley’s Growler.
Malty and sour aroma. Black-brown body with a light tan, creamy head. Some slight lacing. Very creamy flavor with a lovely malty taste. Flavor is sugary and sweet with a medium sized bitter hop finish. A very strong brew, which made me feel very content! Congrats to Jay on a great brew!

At the pub, 7/10/04, on the way home from Colorado. This started off nice - looks beautiful - shiny black/brown - tilt the glass and you’ll see blood red around the edges, darker tan head, great lacing. Smells malty, roasty, sweet vanilla and hoppy. Palate is thick and viscous (and later, cloying). A ton of flavors - chocolate, cream, espresso, plum, licorice; sourness and some hops at the end. This all sounds good, but the sweetness kept building up, and combined with the slight sourness and lack of stronger hops, this just got to be too cloying (syrupy sweet tasting) - I could barely finish it.

Dark brown with a small tan head. Roasted malt aroma. Flavor is very sweet with roasted malt and dark chocolate. Really drinkable and good.

On tap at Barley’s #1. Poured deep red-brown, surprisingly translucent, with a light tan head. I detected molasses, vanilla, and coffee in the aroma. The flavor started with a fruit explosion reminiscent of Thirsty Dog’s Imperial, which led to molasses, vanilla, burnt roasted malt, and a bit of caramel. The downside to this beer is its relatively short flavor profile and way-too-thin body that led to a rather lifeless salty/leathery finish. A very sweet example of the style.

Unfortunately I missed the unveiling of this beer at the Afternoon with the Brewers, but at least I got to try it later. I was looking forward to this beer because I think Barley’s version of an Imperial Stout falls a little short (probably mostly due to the fact that the recipe pre-dates the law that allowed for higher-ABV beers). It is indeed better than Alexander’s but not a whole lot. The beer is an inky black with a miniscule off-white head and very little lacing. I had to bury my nose pretty deep in the glass to get the aroma but it is there: Roasted malt, coffee and hops. The body is rich and somewhat sticky, with a strong roasted malt character. Bitter coffee and chocolate are also apparent. The finish is high on the hops, being a little more bitter than most Imperial Stouts (not as much as Great Divide Maverick though). Overall this is a pretty good offering to the category, and it is always nice to try a homebrew that has "graduated" to being brewed for local beer lovers like myself.