Portsmouth Kate The Great Russian Imperial Stout

Brewed by Portsmouth Brewery
Style: Imperial Stout
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

bottle from Tweety. Thanks so much dude! Black pour. Tan head. Toffee, chocolate, molasses, honey, and raisins. Flavor is full and rich. Chocolate, dark fruit, toffee, vanilla, wood...man this one is not overrated...not even close.

Muddy dark brown. Dark tarry, toffeeish malt. Charred fruits. Big rich chocolate impy with a nice fruity accent. Quality stuff.

Bottle from last year’s Cleveland Tasting. Shared by Tertons I believe. Black body with a big brown head. Taste is a big dose of bakers chocolate and roasted coffee. Very thick body with great carbonation.

Name: Kate the Great
Date: April 25, 2009
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting, DLD
Vintage: 2009
Appearance: black, rothy brown head, sudsy lace
Aroma: rich roasted aroma, touch of milky chocolate
Body: rich creamy body
Flavor: rich roasted malt flavor, touch of sweet chocolate, dark chocolate bitterness
Aroma: 7/10; Appearance: 8/10; Flavor: 8/10; Palate: 9/10; Overall: 18/20
Rating: 4.2/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: ***+/4

I would like to rerate this beer.

A huge thanks goes out to Johnathan for the opportunity to try this. Appearance - This poured out very black, like night fall over the ocean with no moon light in site. The head is that of a fairly quick dissipating wave that does not linger around. Swirl after swirl still not a noteworthy head on this. The head that I was able to muster was tan/sand color with some lacing , but mostly small bubbles on the sides of the glass. I was expecting some heavy phat mama legs that lingered and coated the glass but was disappointed. The legs were more of thin, skinny crack hoe looking for her next fix. Nose - Pure alcohol at first, kinda of like going in to a bar before its opened for the night and all the lingering smells of alcohol enrages the nose hairs and start to make them tingle and not in a good way. The chocolate seeps in for a quick second then roasted coffee comes in with a small role more like a cameo. Wow did I mention alcohol. Mouthfeel - Well so far I am disappointed with all this hype over a beer I have been seeking for a while now. Maybe this was all in my head, maybe this is what a top 3 beer should act like when the audience is so highly seeking a TOP 3 beer who people are giving their left nut to get a hold of and taste its bliss. SO here goes. The front end of this was thin with a burst of alcohol that warms the gullet up. Then you get a dryness that comes in and overtakes the scene. It leaves you screaming Chocolate oh where art thou chocolate! then it appears through the dryness. All of a sudden here comes coffee to steal the show. WEll lets just say Alcohol trips mr.coffee and stabs chocolate in the back and steals the show. It warms you up all the way down to your belly. THoughts - Well I hope my ramblings were not too much I really was disappointed by this beer but yet it was inspiring. It showed me that out of all the top ten beers currently on BA of which I have had all but darkness That this beer is truely over hyped and I will say take Deschutes The abyss, Dark lord ’08, or saint arnolds DR #5 over this any day of the week. We joked about drain pouring this and taking a picture for our avatar. If I get a chance to try this again I will only take a shot of it to see if the bottle that I had might have been bad. Do not buy in to the hype take a pass on this or drink your buddies . Serving type: bottle Reviewed on: 10-24-2008 19:35:54 Updating review. Tried the 09 last night. Still a very over hyped ris beer. Cannot beleive people are going crazy over this stuff. There are so many better ris out there. DR5, older vis., BA BORIS, easier to get vintage blackout stout, and expedition. All are way better stouts. If I was someone living up on the east coast I would keep people from trying this to keep its mystique up. Other wise over a period of time its ratings will fall.

Crushed at Dark Lord Day 09. Thanks to whoeve brought this. Big black pout with off whith a brown head. Big aroma of chocolate. Taste is fruity and chocolatey. Actually surprised by the depth and amount of dark fruits in this one. Smooth motuhfeel, nice body. Overall really cool, awesome beer.

First and foremost, a HUGE thanks to StFun for giving me a ridiculously huge dark brown pour of this at DLD 09. A big carbonated frothy pour, milk chocolate aroma. Flavor was creamy, a little coffee and some vanilla. Although a very good and solid beer, it didn’t quite live up to the hype. If you get the chance, sample it, but don’t trade big(IMO) . As for you StFun, I owe you a debt of gratitude for sharing this one(and some coffee bender)!

Black with a good light brown head on top. Sweet aroma of mainly caramell but also with notes of orange/chocholate candy, light hops, cookie dough, apples and fine liqour. The body is medium+ and very slick. Flavour is also very sweet of vanillja, light chocolate and raisins with some additional berry fruit and roasted malt in the fairly dry finish.