Imperial Stout v1 - Black Ops and roasty bitterness
At time of writing the UK has been in lockdown for 65 days. It is oppressively warm weather and I'm hungover from drinking too much homebrew last night. What better time to start a homebrew blog? I've been thinking a lot about imperial stouts, as one does when its lager weather. My last attempt was interesting, fermented warm with an English strain that had the happy accident of producing a strawberry-like ester in the finished beer. This was somewhat ruined with my addition of extremely tannic oak barrel chips, which although had been soaking in Woodford Reserve for 6 months, still had enough astringency to fell a small horse. Alas. ti-tannic - my first attempt sunk But where to draw inspiration from? Looking at my UnTappd check-ins , there are very little surprises in my highest rated imperial stouts. Brooklyn's Black Ops, Founders CBS, Goose Island Bourbon County, Buxton Yellow Belly, Lervig 3 Bean Stout, countless Omnipollo, hordes of Mikkeller, a smattering...