Winter time. While most of us hate the colder weather, most seem to love the big beers that come out to keep us warm this season. Big barleywines and imperial stouts with malty bodies and higher alcohol levels to warm the cheeks. While many of us look forward to big names that may be hard to get, we should be paying more attention to the great beers that are much easier to come by. Acadia Ales Imperial Stout is a perfect example of a great imperial stout that can hold it’s own aginst the big guys and is easy to get your hands on. It even won a gold medal for bottle conditioned beer at the 2002 Real Ale Festival.
This bottle is from 2006 and aged wonderfully. For 8.4%, it held up very well over the years and was still thick and viscous. The nose had plenty of chocolate and a light alcohol note. Lots of milk chocolate in the taste with a nice bit of roasted malt bitterness still around. I’d definitely cellar this one again.
Acadia Ales sells this brew in 4-packs of 12oz bottles making it easy to grab several for the cellar. Enjoy a couple now and put a couple away for 6 months to a year from now. It’s great to experiment with aging reasonably priced brews and seeing how they change over time. There is less risk financially than doing so with the expensive, limited released bottles. The bargain prices also means you can afford to pickup a number of them to put away. Check one out every 6 months and see how it progresses over time. Save some for a vertical tasting from several vintages over the years. 12oz bottles also mean you don’t have to finish a whole lot of big beer if you do choose to go at a bottle on your own.
Winter is here and it’s time to stock the cellar and settle in for the cold months ahead (and the holidays where a big of alcohol helps to ease the stress of the season). Checkout Acadia Ales Imperial Stout and keep warm this winter.