Three Floyds Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout

Brewed by Three Floyds Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Munster, Indiana USA

Bottle @ the wolf tasting. Black with a small film which diappears quickly. Aroma and flavour of rye bread, (smoaked salmon?!) chocolate and very sweet and oily (a bit too sweet and sticky)

thank arvin! split a bottle of this with three old cook friends of mine and couldnt have been happier. this beer has legs, legs i tell you! pours like molasses, tastes like a chocolate terrine with port cherries arvin used to make. what a beer, what a night. makes me miss the ohio river valley. go cards!

Red Wax-2004 - This is by far and away one of the most amazing Imperial stouts that I have ever had in my life. This beer pours a very heavy and oily blackness into the snifter. The aroma is chocolate and cherries, coffee, licorice, lots and lots of dark fruits, raspberries and black berries. Rich and exotic on the palate, and the flavors just keep going and going and you get a completely different taste profile from sip to sip with flavors fighting for the forefront on your tongue. Extremely well-balanced for as big a beer as it is. Extremely complex, rich chocolately and roasty, but very smooth, detecting just a hint of heat and hop bitterness in the finish.

07 Bottle@Dr.Bills.....last one of the night, and yes I paid the price! Was it worth it? Of course. Poured dark with no head. Smelled and tasted of sweet molasses, chocolate, and roasted coffee. Over the top. What a night.

Silver wax, 2007 bomber, courtesy of badbeer. Pours jet black and thick, used oil thick. Very thin brown head that doesn’t do much. Leaves an oily coating on the glass. Super dark malty smelling with alcohol. Tastes like it smells... Dark, oily, malty, thick, sweet, super sweet, maybe some coffee but maybe not. This is officially the thickest beer I’ve ever had, not alot of carbonation to it. It’s tasty but damn, super sweet... and thick.

sooooo overwhelming. there was no sense of enjoyment drinking this. how anyone is able to get through an entire bottle is beyond me. blew out my taste buds...just too much going on without any real balance to me. i couldnt finish the 4 oz sample i had. i think they should stop putting this in bombers, and maybe use the smaller bottles like 375ml or even the 6oz bottles like KRE are in. just makes more sense. i can appreciate it for what it is...but if you take away the hype it just isnt that good. ive split 2 bottles with 2 completely different set of beer geeks who arent really familiar with the breweries across the country, so they dont know about all the hype...and pretty much everyone that it was too much and not very enjoyable. the same people that liked abyss, expedition, and jah-va that i let them try. a damn shame i traded 2 cuvee de tommes for 2 of these

2-1-08 bottle shared with lb4lb thanks to acertain!!! (my #500 rating)
2007 bottle
Thick pitch black pour with little light tannish brown head on the first pour. Small spotted lacing - good appearance, thick and dark. Rich, roasted malt and sweet alcohol aroma. The alcohol in the nose is well balanced with the sweet malt smell. I get no coffee, but a little vanilla and some molasses as well as it warms. The flavor is quite sweet, not nearly as roasted as I had imagined. It has that rich, decadent dessert sweetness. It almost tastes like a rich dark chocolate, alcohol infused cake. The mouthfeel is memorable - very thick, very syrup-like. It is quite creamy and rich and dense on the palate, but is on that thin line of being just too much. It actually feels weighty on the tongue. No real carbonation but I don’t miss it in this - it is fitting here. Finish is nearly tart, it is so sweet. Aftertaste has the sweetness as well as the residual alcohol taste - not really my favorite aspect of this beer. Feels like slightly watered down molasses on the tongue. Overall, very well made - but the hype leading up to trying this for the first time may have spoiled it a bit for me. Obviously a good brew but not the best Imperial Stout I have had (in fact there are at least 4 or so that come to mind that I feel are much more amazing than this). Aside from that, a great beer for my 500th rating. Thanks again acertain!
10-18-08 bottle (2008 bottle)
Much better and more yummy! Higher rating deserved.

Superbowl Sunday 2008! GO PATS! I really wanted to pregame in style! 2007 bottle - Apperance- Perfect dark black color, i can only describe it as a dark lord black. Beutifull, very dark brown head. Oily, leaves a lining around the glass as you drink it or swirl it around. If i opened this bottle freshly new, i would rate the appear as a four, but for an aged beer, i expect it to look a little oily, the color looks amazing. Smells supurb, with molasses, a faint milk chocolate, and a very strong expresso scent. Tastes amazing! What every imperial stout should strive to be! I personally think it lives up to the hype. Roasty hersey chocolate sweetness, caramel favor that i may be mistaken, and is really vanilla?, not just roasted coffee, but heavily dark roasted expresso, and maybe a sweet syrup taste also. It also really tastes cask or oak conditioned, like an aged stout. I can’t imagine how good the actual oak aged or cask Dark Lord tastes. Incrediably smooth, very drinkable for a 13% alc beer. The % is totally hidden in this lush, rich, delicious flavor! The best texture i have ever experianced. This is truely the best beer i have ever enjoyed. I’m afraid to drink the 06 or 05 bottles which i have traded for, thinking they might be on the verge of getting that soy taste. But this is amazing, i would not age it any longer! Thank you Three Floyds for putting the effort in this beer to make it the head of a class of the best beers in the world!