Cigar City Marshal Zhukov’s Imperial Stout

Brewed by Cigar City Brewing
Style: Imperial Stout
Tampa, Florida USA

Bottle shared by Mike. Thanks Mike! Pours oil pitch black with tan head. Aroma is espresso, chocolate, dark grain, and more coffee notes. Heavy viscous mouthfeel. Flavors follow the nose and you would have thought this was a coffee stout. A real thick coffee stout that had a creamy smoothness and finished dry. A real sipper. And real nice. Coated the glass like any good motor oil should.

750ml bottle... pours a pitch dark black with a quarter inch tan head, which quickly fades to a creamy tan lacing. sweet candy, dark chocolate, coffee, big roasted malts and licorice across the nose... big chewy thick body - a true dessert in a glass. soft and creamy with a punch of bitterness up front. this one grabs the lips as soon as you take your first sip. thick, bitter and lasting finish filled with espresso, chocolate and a touch of syrup. Cigar City has really delivered with this Imperial Stout - outstanding! Glad I’ve got another bottle to sit on...

Bottle: pours dark black, thick, with a frothy dark brown head, aroma of roasted malts and coffee, taste is malty, a little bitter, starts to get a bit of a minty taste as it warms a bit, slightly olily, medium body, not much carb, solid but overhyped.

750 ml bottle. Pours a very dark oily black with a nice deep mocha head. Aroma is tons of roasty deep dark chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, lots of nuts, and green and herbal hops- becomes a bit minty and leathery as it opens up, anise seed, slight licorice, and slight mocha-coffee hints. Flavor starts off big chocolate, but as it warms, more licorice root, earth, leather, tar, sharp bittersweet chocolate- and sharp molasses, hops are pretty big overall- and at first, they are overly bitter in the end, but as it opens it gets a bit more integrated into the beer- green, mint, eucalyptus- green pine- balsam. Body is pretty big, bitterness comes in pretty heavy at the end, a bit syrupy, somewhat sweet, and just an overall nice big stout, similar to a good batch of fresh Expedition- with a slight bit more hops. Real good.

Bottle. Ink black with a lingering brown head. Massive black malt, earthy tobocco aromas. Rich, smooth mouthfeel. Nice semi dry burnt malt flavors with bakers chocolate, tobacco leaf, black coffee.

When it comes to impy stouts I don’t think they get much better. Is there any style these guys can’t do? Phenomenal brew........a great sipper to watch the MNF game with tonight!!

Pours out black with brown head. Smells sweet and roasty. Taste is roasted malts with bitter hops. Sticky but not too sweet. Flavors of coffee chocolate and molasses like it says plus dark fruits and sweet caramel and vanilla. Could use some wood. Dry finish some alcohol. Thick and chewy. Good stuff.

Big thanks to Justin for this 750mL, poured into a tulip. Wow, is this one seriously good-looking beer. It pours pitch black out the bottle and seems to suck up all the light in the room underneath a thick mocha head that recedes very slowly and leaves sheets of lacing. The aroma is big, dark and roasty with tons of heavily roasted dark malts and plenty of espresso and dry cocoa powder. There is an underlying molasses sweetness that almost balances the roasted character. The taste is absolutely massive with all kinds of things going on. There is a heavily roastes dark malt backbone that underpins everything. On top is the very dry, almost chalky, bakers chocolate and cocoa character with some espresso. The sweetness of the molasses from the aroma is not nearly as evident, though I’m pretty sure it’s in there somewhere. Also, I get hints of tobacco in the taste as well, but maybe that’s just in my head...tough to tell with all the other things going on. The mouthfeel is full bodied and slick, almost oily, going down. It’s dessert-like and very thick on the palate with enough carbonation to keep it from becoming cloying. This is a huge beer all the way around - gorgeous looking and with a complex taste that I think will improve with time as the flavors start to meld together.