Founders Imperial Stout

Brewed by Founders Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Grand Rapids, Michigan USA

Deep black beer with a thick sticky very dark brown head. The aroma is really nice, rich milk chocolate, a bit of bittersweet character as well. Quite rich with a bit of wheaty spiciness in the back as well. It is quite intense and rich. Sweet deep malty finish. A touch of roasted barley and a touch of savoury slightly salty richness. Great balance with a nice earthy bitterness and a lingering fudgey chocolate sweetness as well. Great imperial stout.

Black with a thick brown bubbly head, which reduces to a lasting ring. Aroma is wonderfully coffee-like. Flavors of dark chocolate, roasted coffee, wood, and cereal. Very sweet malt profile which is matched in intensity by the strong roast malt. Both of these flavors linger for quite awhile. This is what an Imperial Stout should taste like.

Bottle from BeerBunker. Thanks man! Dark chocolate, coffee, light notes of dark fruit, cocoa, perhaps some molasses. Pours black ya’ll, cuz I’m black ya’ll, cuz I’m blacker than black cuz I’m black ya’ll. Stab Master Arson whats up! Bitter chocolate, coffee, roast, dark fruits, more dark chocolate notes. Some earthy bitterness i the finish which is nice and dry with some residual sugars as well. Hoppy bitterness comes through and works well with this one. Another triumph from Founders. Alcohol is felt, but a nice compliment. Well done.

Appearance – Pitch black in color, beautiful looking burnt red mocha colored head about half a finger in size. Head retention is good, leaves a ring of bubbles around the glass with islands of bubbles throughout. Smell – This smells like your quintessential American Imperial Stout: hints of roasted chocolate, coffee, even pull out some fruitiness like strawberries. Nothing about this sticks out as fantastic, but overall it smells quite good. Taste – Wow, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! Founder’s accidently made alcoholic chocolate milk! Tiny bit of coffee, having trouble pulling anything else out of this. Mouthfeel – This feels like thick chocolate milk with a little bit of a chalky finish to it. Quite pleasant. Drinkability – I could drink a couple of these, easy. This thing goes down almost too easy.

First and foremost, for a 10% beer this is pretty simple, even pretty boring stuff. Try a Bell’s Expedition, or a Victory Storm King, or the new Lost Abbey Serpent, or Peche Mortel, or ... Nose of malt and chocolate. Dead black, almost no head, no lacing, nothing. Taste of chocolate, sour milk, sweet malts, good smoked cheddar if you want something kinder than sour milk. Mouth is too thick, syrup even, unredeemed by adequate carbonation, which would have helped. Sweetness, likewise, could have been redeemed by adequate hopping. I am appalled by the high scores given by some of my most experienced Swedish and Danish colleagues. Maybe they’ve never had a good American stout? Or maybe they think that cramming as much alcohol as possible into a glass is the same as brewing beer? This was a serious disappointment. I’ll give away the rest to my non-beer drinking friends, who will no doubt love it. Yuch. // I went back, tried to finish the half bottle I’d walked away from half an hour earlier, and ended up using it to generate steam in a barbecue. Undrinkable. Like high alcohol baby food. I dropped the reviews lower. Double yuch.

pours pitch black lot of clinging lace and thickdark tan head aromas of coffee,roasted maltsand hops flavors of the same with a bit of molaasses coming thur a good solid Imperial

Black in color with a good sized brown head. Aroma is of medium roast coffee, roasted malts, cocoa, and dark chocolate. Taste is of bitter chocolate, coffee, and roasted malts.

What a remarkable Impy Stout! This one has it all! The beer pours a black color with a dark brown head. The head leaves an ample amount of lacing around the glass, although not a lot. The nose is full of coffee, toasted bread, hops, chocolate and milk. The body is full and strong and pours like motor oil. The flavors are really intense and rich, with notes of milk chocolate, coffee, alcohol, hops and toasted bread. The finish is a great mix of sweet and bitter, with more notes of coffee, hops and silky chocolate. This is definitely one of the best Imperial Stouts that I’ve had the pleasure of sampling.