Viking Brewing Big Swede

Brewed by Viking Brewing Company
Style: Imperial Stout
Dallas, Wisconsin USA

Bottle: Dark brown with a long lasting light brown head. Aroma is just all pears, surprising considering that it’s an imperial stout, some apples, and a bit of yeast with toffee and coffee notes hiding behind the fruit notes. Taste is bitter chocolate, cocoa, more pear, and sweet light fruits. Full bodied, creamy, and thick in your mouth, with moderate carbonation. This one is a bit different that your average imperial stout, and I really like the fruit notes in both the aroma and flavor.

Couleur brune très foncée, apparence presque opaque. Mousse beige foncé plutôt persistante. Arômes de liqueurs de café, de noisettes, de fudge et aussi de celle d’un fruit s’approchant de la mangue. En bouche, le rôti est bien présent et s’avère très bien balancé avec l‘amertume des houblons et le fruité des levures. Corps d’épaisseur moyenne à pleine, L’harmonie des composantes et la modération seront toujours attrayantes pour moi.

Charcoal and coffee aroma coming off of a very dark brown stout. The taste is coffee liqueur, with some lingering notes of banana and dried fruits; raisins and apricots. The roasted coffee bean flavor is soft and velvety during the sip, but gets unusually dry and choking in the aftertaste.

Almost black, deep coffee coloured, weird lacing punctuates the light brown head. Highly fruity nose, a different impy. Mango and orange.. a fruit salad as well as pure fudge, thick and coffeeish, toffee, coffee liqueur, now this makes one think of a good dessert. Original melon and mellow malts abound in mouth. Little to no hops taste, soft roastiness. Rather hard to describe, but feels like a nice change of pace. Moderately high carbonation, medium bodied, Belgian fruitiness. Good!

The Lure:
Coffee liqueur and hovering banana esters leak onto the roasted nuts. Caramel and chocolate reside comfortably underneath.

The Festivities:
An alcohol breath blows decorously onto the roasted malt bitterness. A delectable sweet fruitiness is akin to a tropical liqueur. A great stout without the hops, balanced and flavorful, with a curvaceous body like I like them.

Transcendence:
Even the chocolate bars with fruits and nuts are hugely satisfying when you’re on a chocolate kick.

(12 oz bottle: Obtained in trade with footbalm, thanks Eric!) So I gather that Swedish style Imperial Stouts are lighter and fruitier than their American counterparts. Not a big surprise, since Americans aren’t known for their restraint or subtlety. Moderately bitter roast and hops show considerable presence, but aren’t nearly as in your face as many in the style. Molasses is aplenty. Therefore, the moderate fruitiness, which seems to center on cherries, is quite prominent as well, standing on equal footing with the bitter roast until the finish, where the bitterness begins to assert itself a tad. The result is an unusual Imperial Stout, lighter in flavor and on the palate, but quite complex. The fruitiness even adds a bit of zing to the palate. Even in the nose, the maltiness is on equal footing with fruity aroma. Medium in body, not quite what I’d call rich or big. Dark brown in color, translucent everywhere except through the center of the beer, but definitely not black, so it’s fairly light for the style. Light tan head is on the small side right from the start, and dissipates rapidly down to a thin film. Interesting beer, fairly unique for the style, but ultimately falls a bit short of top-bill status.

A pitch black pour with a tan head. A milk chocolate, charcoal, and coffee aroma. The flavor is very smooth with almost no alcohol flavor present. Some milk chocolate, malted milk balls (Im tasting that alot lately?) and raisins. I agree with the RICH statement in the commercial description. A sweet aftertaste. This would rock with some dessert!

Jet black in color with tan ridges on the outer rim. Aroma is like an iced, blended cafe mocha. Some wafts of burnt rubber and black currant surface as well, followed up by a distant sense of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Nice and thick palate presents itself early on. Alcohol is discernable but tame. Strong alluring flavors of dark chocolate with black berry esters hint at a concoction that reminds me of a dark chocolate raspberry truffle sitting in the sun. For only an 8% ABV, this one could put on a clinic for the more reserved Imperial Stouts. Tree bark finish. Tasty stuff. Thanks for sharing, 1FastSTi.