San Diego Red Star Imperial Stout

Brewed by San Diego Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
San Diego, California USA

Draft at SDBC. Very dark with a brown head. Aromas of chocolate and more roasty malts. Somewhat sour up front. Wasn’t expecting that. Chocolate in the middle and decent hoppiness to finish things off. Alcohol warming if you let it sit on your tounge for a few minutes. Decent, actually... not too bad.

Draft. Opaque black with a thin film of dark tan head. Banana, roast malt aromatics. Beef jerkey meatiness and saltiness, roast malt flavors. Sweet chocolate finish. Mouthfeel is medium heavy.

Tasted on draft @ the brewpub. Pors dark brown with very little carbonation. This beer is just too watered down for my taste. A pour representation of the style.

Sampled this beer at the PP Strong Ale Festival. It poured a opaque color w/ reddish brown highlights, big brown head and great lasting lacing. Weak on the nose, it had sour ferm. fruit, citrus, raisin sweetness and hints of plum. The mouth was better, w/ roast and caramel flavors, chocolate and soury ferm fruit on the backside of the tongue. The beer was smooth but tangy, good effervescence, a medium body because it was really wet on the mouthfeel. Didn’t like it too much.

On tap @ the San Diego Strong Ale Fest. After all the IIPAs, I decided to switch it up and order an Imperial Stout. Poured a dark black with a large brown head. Nice looking. Reading DarkElf’s review, I have something similar in my notes. I wrote down ’smells kinda skunky’. Definitely tastes better than it smells. Smooth body with a light bitter finish.

(Draft: 2004 Strong Ale Festival, Pizza Port in Carlsbad, CA. Day 2, Beer 6) WHO FARTED?!! Okay, I usually really like the specialty beers this place brews, and I am a big advocate of theirs, but this beer has some problems. Oh my God, this beer just flat out smells horrible. I swear, it smells like nasty beer farts. And it’s definitely the beer, not the slob standing next to me. There’s also a decent roasty aroma in there, but it’s hard to get past the farts. Aside from the aroma, the rest of the beer is okay, but still not as good as their other specialty brews. This tastes quite roasty, mildly sweet, and moderately bitter, so all the components are there, but overall, it’s pretty weak for an Imperial Stout. Fairly dry palate. Dark, dark brown in color, almost opaque at the edges. Pours a big tan head and shows excellent retention. Large patches of lace are deposited on the glass. I just might have to see if this is available at the brewery and I sure hope it smells better!

This beer was sampled at the San Diego Strong Ale Festival. Now what in the funk did these guys do to this poor beer??? It pours a reddish ambery brown with a somewhat dark hue..but this is supposed to be an imperial stout..so what the hell? It sported a frothy white creamy head with an aroma of slight coffee's and plastic. The taste was creamy, like it had been nitroed, with this plastic coffee bean taste thing at the end...blech..it was hard to describe. This is by far the funkiest imperial stout ive ever tasted. It was like ghettoized or something... it was like a stout that escaped its steel can! It was heavily carbonated and tasted like plasticized water with a hint of coffee... thank you and good night!

Cask. Very sweet and too malty. Nice color and head for cask. Also tried it at Strong Ale and it was better there.