Lagunitas Imperial Stout

Brewed by Lagunitas Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Petaluma, California USA

Bottle sampled. Pours black with a nice tan head . Aroma of roasted malts, coffee, chocolate, and some mild hops. Flavor is coffee, caramel, roasty malts, and a hint of smoke with a dry roasted finish.

Bottle. Dark brown body with a thick, foamy head. Aromas are roasty and smokey with a touch of hops poking through. Hops come through more than normal in the flavor... which starts out with a bunch of roasted malt and smokey peat and then heads into a little bit of a piney hops funk at the end. Fairly weak for an impy stout.

Mr Goodbar Good Beer Club. Opaque black lots of roastiness, some smoke. Minimal hop s here. Some chocolate, cocoa roastiness. Pretty tasty but body is lacking a little

Bottled. Pours black, with a tan, foamy head. Nose is roasty and smoky. Flavor is smoky and malty. Finishes mildly hoppy. Medium bodied. Not impressive.

22 oz. bomber bottle, no freshness date, two tiny hammer and sickle symbols in the longer center of the label, and a humorous stab at the last Russian Czar, Czar Nicholas, along the right side of the label, sampled in a pint glass. Not as black in color as a lot RIS’s, more of a milk chocolate brown, large pale tan head of bubbly foam that slowly settled into a thin sudsy lacing, minimal amount of sticky lace. Lightly roasted malt aromas with a light cereal grain, it takes awhile to get used to the smell of this. It’s a smell of cocoa and grain bran cereal, almost like CoCo Puffs. Further whiffs reveal hints of caramelized sugar, vanilla and more cocoa. Way out at the edges is something that resembles a citric hop. I don’t care for the mouthfeel of this, thin and a bit watery. There is enough moderate carbonation to add a little firmness, but I think it’s the thin for the style maltiness that is the main problem. The malts have tastes of cocoa and caramel without any coffee malt flavors, the malts flavors are more like an American Double Stout. Any fruitiness comes from the citric hops, quite soft in their bitterness. Finishes dry, lightly roasted chocolate and caramel malts with a mild hop spiciness. There is an alcoholic sting in the finish, otherwise, it is pretty well hidden. This is only brew from Lagunitas that I have even been remotely disappointed with. Not one of their better efforts, in the world of Russian Imperial Stouts, l feel this falls in the lower half.

22oz. Pours a dark brown color with a light tan head that dissipates rather quickly. Aroma is of roasted malts. Flavor is of caramel, malts, coffee beans and sweet toffee. Was not impressed with this one for a imperial stout.

bomber. solid black in color with ruby edges. head is light tan, thin and short lived. strong nose of plums, figs, dark chocolate and coffee. nice cola and caramel tones. creamy chocolatae texture is a tad thin for me.mildly robust finish. this tastes a little faded, my specimen was roughly a year old, it seems to have lost some intensity.

Sampled during Manhattan Blind IS Tasting: Had some very nice coffee and dark chocolate shining thorugh. More than others. Not much roasted flavors just sweet and bitter coffee.