This is the first publication in “From the drawer” series. It took me some time to select the note to be the first material. This note comes from 27th of August 2014 – Smuttynose Imperial
This is the first publication in “From the drawer” series. It took me some time to select the note to be the first material. This note comes from 27th of August 2014 – Smuttynose Imperial Stout.
With this publication I am opening the “From the drawer” series. Due to the fact, that this is the first post in series, I would like to tell you a few words about the criteria, I am along with during the tasting. It corresponds with the tasting note template, I mentioned in first post on this blog. In next publications in this series I will skip the part with tasting process description and I will focus on the note itself.
Before I start the tasting, I am trying to get familiar with the beer – where it come from, who is the producer, what hops were used, etc. The only thing I am trying to omit is the description provided by the distributor – in most cases it included the sensoric description of the beer and I do not want to get any suggestions before I try it myself.
The subject of this tasting note is Smuttynose Imperial Stout created by Smuttynose Brewing Company in US. This is Imperial Stout, produced with Warrior, Cascade, Sterling, Columbus hops. It contains 9,4% of alcohol.
The color of this beer is black with slight brown reflections in the light. Its clarity is a little bit subdued. Viscosity is very poor. Foam is dense, dark beige, goes down pretty quick, leaving beautiful rich lacing. The color of this beer is very intense.
Short comment to presented part. First step of tasting is description, how the alcohol looks in the glass. I am trying to describe its color, clarity foam and viscosity. Viscosity of a beer is the way, how it flows down on glass walls. In this part it is very important to have clean glass. If we were drinking another beer earlier and did not clean it up or we did not rinse it as we should, this aspect of evaluation might be unsettled. Viscosity itself can tell us something about alcohol (if it flows slowly with thin layers, that can indicate high level of alcohol) or about sweetness (if it flows slowly with thick layer, it can indicate high level of sugar). This can also give a hint, what we may feel on our tongue later.
Another term that might not be clear is lacing. It is a sediment that stays on glasses walls after foam comes down. It is only an esthetical parameter, but still interesting and important in the evaluation. You need to remember that lacing can be also interrupted by not clean glass in which we have our alcohol. Second step of tasting process is to describe aroma and its intensity.
In aroma I can feel delicate tones of hops, light coffee, chocolate, some caramel. It reminds me smoked Barley Wine a little bit. Aroma is semi intense itself.
Bouquet is also slightly hoppy, with delicate tone of coffee and stronger accents of smoke and some chocolate and caramel. Taste is very intense, deep and impressive. Beer itself is pretty heavy to drink but very dignified.
Next step is to describe the taste and the character of the beer separately. About the character I always try to define the depth of taste info about how heavy the beer is. What I mean by heavy is how hard it would be (which I do not recommend) to drink particular beer in short time.
Attack of this beer has a very delicate aroma, with the same intensity it pinch the tongue – the saturation is pretty low. In the body you can find the gallery of tastes – it is hard focus on one particular. However the beer itself is very static, but it does not lower its rate and character. Thanks to this fact, the tasting impression gets deeper and stronger with each second in the mouth. Finish is pretty long and warms up the throat. It leaves very nice aftertaste with the same character.
Next part is the description of dynamics of the beer. First is the attack – the feeling on your lips and tip of your tongue in the moment of taking first sip of beer. The pinch at the beginning is saying about saturation of beer – the level of gas in it. At this point you can sometimes experience the spice of this alcohol. Second is the body – the feeling in your mouth after 2 – 3 seconds and/or pouring the beer around your tongue. I am doing my best to describe the dynamics, that is the way, how beer changes in mouth in time or if stays the same. I am also taking the texture under consideration. At the end I am focusing on the finish – the moment combined of swallowing the beer and the aftertaste – is it long, is it pleasant and corresponds with the impression I had in my mouth and nose.
It is hard to describe the balance of this beer – from one point of view it is not balanced too well… Thinking about it as Imperial Stout – it is too sweet. From the other side the amount of flavors and similarity to Barley Wine makes this beer astonishing. Poor acidity supported by sweetness of a chocolate and caramel perfectly compose with hoppy bitterness. Acidity is very low; bitterness medium, hoppy; sweetness is dominating, semi-strong with chocolate and caramel tones.
One before last step is to collate the beer with style postulated by the brewery. Personally I call it balance. In this part I also try to describe parts of taste and their character: acidity, bitterness and sweetness. As the last part I provide the general comment and final note:
Amazing Imperial Stout, or to be more precise – smoked American Barley Wine style Imperial Stout. This beer has so much to offer: unforgettable impressions and festival of tastes. It is like to styles of beer – Imperial Stout and Barley Wine – met in a bar and decided to mix to create something amazing and unique. Come back to this beer is a must under no circumstances. It can also be recommended as an example of successful marriage in world of beers. It would be a perfect companion during a lonely evening with your thoughts. Among your friends it will require a lot of attention – you are not allowed to just walk by such notable.
Note 8,5/10
In summary I am trying to describe the impression and feelings I have while drinking particular beer. I try to decide if provided beer is worth coming back or not and to whom it should be recommended. At the last part I try to describe the context of situation or circumstances in which it should be tasted: either lonely with your thoughts or maybe better with a group of friends. I use the 1 to 10 scale during the evaluation, but sometimes (like in this note) I am also using halves. Only a few times I have tasted beers that were so outstanding that they got rating over 10. We will get to them…
The note itself, considering the time, seems to be pretty adult in context of forming my ability of evaluating this kind of alcohol. The more fun I have coming back to it after 6 years. If you wonder, why did I select this note as the first one in this series, let me explain. First – I needed a note with pretty good content of style of description to have the base for describing beer evaluation process. Secondly, in my first material in “From the drawer” I wanted to publish a photo and unfortunately to most of my tasting notes I did not took a picture on my own. Now I do not want to put here pictures downloaded from the internet due to copyrights. The last reason is that I wanted to present a beer that is not common in Polish market. Of course most of beers that will appear in this series will come from Polish breweries. In this post I wanted to present the beer that from some perspective will be as special as is the first publication in new series…
This is the way, how the first material from “From the drawer” series presents. Using this occasion, I tried to describe the criteria I am using during evaluation of beer. In next posts I will skip these parts and focus only on the notes.
Let me know, how do you like this material and form of presentation in comments section. Traditionally I invite you to visit the fanpage on Facebook.