Clipper City Heavy Seas Peg Leg

Brewed by Clipper City Brewing Co.
Style: Imperial Stout
Baltimore, Maryland USA

Bottle sample at the Free the Hops 2009 Blastoff Party. Poured black with a tan head. Roasted malt and nut aroma with a slight hop background. Sweet flavor of caramel and chocolate. Medium to full body that is creamy and sweet throughout.

12-oz. Thanks, RiversideAK! Pours nearly black with rubied highlights in the corners. Not much nose--coffee, chocolate, maybe some vinegary tartness (that doesn’t belong). Hard to believe this beer has as much as 8% abv based on such a vacant nose. Creamy medium body. Tart, sweet, odd dark roasted mid-palate. Very hard beer to figure.

12 oz. bottle. Pours a very deep brown, almost black. Small tan head that leaves behind a little lacing. Nose is raisins, prune, plum, roasted malt, and a hint of coffee. Medium low carbonation with a nice smooth mouthfeel. Expect bittersweet chocolate, some coffee, fruit, and a sourness on the palate. Finishes very clean and a bit dry. Given this is an imperial, it hides it’s alcohol well. This would make a good session imperial stout if there is such a thing. A very mild imperial stout.

This poured a very dark brown color with a beige head. Aroma was mild chocolate roasted malts and coffee, barely there though. Flavor was roastedness and thats about it, very bland and watery. Definately nothing imperial about this stout at all.

It looks like a true stout should - very dark black with a brown head. The taste, however, is nothing special. It’s good, and certainly an above average beer, but it’s nothing mind-blowing either.

12oz bottle. Nice roasty nose with big chocolate cake aromas. Pours a near black with a smal quickly collapsing brown head. Really odd and different tasting imperial stout. Its very tasty but it seems more like an imperial sweet stout. It doesn’t have that intense roastiness, What it does have is a very strong hazelnut opening. Strong notes of molasses of chocolate. This is a very flavorful stout but not one that smacks you in the face. I can see why this is rated low and yet I don’t agree with it because I actually dig this its just not really a typical imperial stout. I could drink a few of these back to back whereas I could never do that with most imperial stouts. Alcohol is very well hidden and the mouthfeel is medium and somewhat thick.

Peg Leg has a brown-black pour (I can see through it when held up to a light, it is a very dark ruby), gives a tan bubbled head, leaves a little lacing on the glass, label states that this ale has some yeast sediment but I do not see any in the bottle – that is funny, I found aromas of dark roasted malt, dark and milk chocolate, fragrances of dark sugar and syrup, to my surprise some faint smoke, I think I detected some Belgian yeast aroma in the background to, there are flavors of dark roasted malt, dark chocolate and a hint of dark fruit, there is little sweetness in this Impy, has a small bitterness at the finish, this beer has a medium or so mouth feel along with some creaminess on the palate, this is a weak Impy compared to the big boys, it does not have the big flavors and ‘Uumph’ I get in better Imperial Stouts, and this is not a standout in the world of beers.

Bottle. Pours a very dark brown with a small, off-white and frothy head. Aromas of molasses, nuts, roasted malts, and a bit of caramel. Texture is very slick to begin, then proceeds to an oily finish. Very weird though for a stout. Flavors of caramel, coffee, and some molasses. Okay beer but there are much better stouts to be had.