Plead The 5th Imperial Stout - Dark Horse Brewing Company

Displayed for educational use only; do not reuse.

BA SCORE
96
world-class
-
1,574 Ratings

rAvg: 4.3
pDev: 8.6%
Reviews: 669
Hads: 905

Ratings Help

Brewed by:
Dark Horse Brewing Company

Michigan, United States

Style | ABV
Russian Imperial Stout | 11.00% ABV

Availability: Rotating. bottle (617), on-tap (46), growler (5), cask (1).

Notes:
No notes at this time.

View: Beers (55) | Reviews (84) | Events (0)

Reviews

Sort by: Latest | High | Low | Top Reviewers | Show Hads:

« first ‹ prev | 1-25 | 26-50 | 51-75 | next › last »

Reviews by tectactoe:

tectactoe

Michigan

4.38/5 rDev +1.9%
look: 4 | smell: 4.25 | taste: 4.5 | feel: 4.5 | overall: 4.25

Pours dark as fuck and thick as shit - is that an accurate description of the appearance? It looks like molasses as it dribbles out of the bottle, pouring will nearly no sound as it collapses into the glass. No head forms at first, even with a direct pour down the middle, until moments after I'm finished pouring and a dark tan film rises from nowhere and puts a skin on the brew.

Aroma comes through full-force with insanely deep roasted coffee; charred espresso and dark, bitter cocoa beans. This is a heavy hitter, alright, and the nose doesn't hold anything back. There is a creaminess to it, carrying over a very light sweetness. But make no mistake - if the initial aroma is any indication, the sheer roasted bitterness of this brew will tower over all else. Some more dark fudge aromas open up as the beer warms, but it remains a deep, black, and bitter type of fudge, still laying low on the sweetness. Surprisingly low alcohol character for being 11-12% ABV, but there is a noticeable warmth to back everything up.

The taste, shockingly enough, opens up with a very light, licorice-like sweetness before converging into the roasted carnage. Bitter-ass roasted coffee beans, and huge charcoal notes take over like none other. This beefy stout plays off of a heavy hop character as well, something else I really enjoy; leafy, ashy, herbal, and spicy. The bitterness from the hops and the bitterness from the roast combine to form a super bitterness that may even be stronger than all of the sweetness from the malt.

Light chocolates and sinister dark fruits play the counterbalancing sweetness role, although they don't stand a chance again the roasted bomb. There is a heavy fade of char, roast, burnt coffee, and nuttiness going into the aftertaste. Overall, the alcohol warms up a bit and gives this baby a fuckin' huge backbone - very robust; it demands that it be sipped slowly rather than slammed in a few seconds. This beer is big.... no, HUGE, on the palate, and creamy all the way through. Super low carbonation, but it almost works, here.

Seriously a badass stout; orgasmically powerful roast from nearly start to finish with a heavy and hard-hitting bitterness through and through. I love stouts like this. For the high ABV, it drinks pretty well. I'm biased towards bitter stouts, so this one was right in my wheelhouse. Simply delicious.

Serving type: bottle

03-05-2013 04:27:00 | More by tectactoe

More User Reviews:

alex021224

Michigan

4.75/5 rDev +10.5%

06-19-2013 19:10:33 | More by alex021224

TreyIsWilson

Michigan

4.5/5 rDev +4.7%

06-19-2013 03:08:39 | More by TreyIsWilson

Auztan

Illinois

3.5/5 rDev -18.6%

06-18-2013 19:29:59 | More by Auztan

Buttermilk

Illinois

4/5 rDev -7%

06-17-2013 17:19:39 | More by Buttermilk

Rojada1988

Pennsylvania

4/5 rDev -7%

06-17-2013 17:04:42 | More by Rojada1988

Rau71

California

4.25/5 rDev -1.2%

06-17-2013 16:36:12 | More by Rau71

rydev24

Pennsylvania

4/5 rDev -7%

06-17-2013 01:52:59 | More by rydev24

jaxon53

Connecticut

4.25/5 rDev -1.2%

06-16-2013 23:35:49 | More by jaxon53

aslamm75

Indiana

4.25/5 rDev -1.2%

06-16-2013 22:27:30 | More by aslamm75

TheCrowsNest

California

3.5/5 rDev -18.6%

06-16-2013 17:16:56 | More by TheCrowsNest

uncccegr

North Carolina

4.5/5 rDev +4.7%

06-16-2013 04:10:21 | More by uncccegr

GOGRANDE

Colorado

4.5/5 rDev +4.7%

06-16-2013 02:32:53 | More by GOGRANDE

Jason1337

Pennsylvania

4.75/5 rDev +10.5%

06-14-2013 22:46:54 | More by Jason1337

TheBrewo

Michigan

4.19/5 rDev -2.6%
look: 4.25 | smell: 4.5 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.25 | overall: 4.25

We crack the top and pour a brew of dark black into our Founders snifters It holds a two finger head of espresso colored bubbles, which show tight uniformity and nice retention. This is easily reproducible, leaving islands of lacing around the glasses, and a crescent moon of bubbles crowing the top of the liquid. No haze or sediment is appreciated, and carbonation appears to be moderate. The aroma is amazingly deep, with richly roasted and char-burned black, coffee, and chocolate malts. Milky vanillas, red cherries, plum, and the alcohol all add sweetness. Otherwise the nose is taken up in a whirlwind of complexity, with campfire ash, buttery diacetyls, faint pseudo-woodiness, cornmeal, vegetal metallics, chocolate wafers, light grassy hops, heavy vinyl plastics, and light apricot fruitiness. With warmth comes anise and black pepper spiciness. Our first impression is that the flavoring is wildly roasty and just as smoky as the nose would suggest, with big chalky dryness and surprising sweetness on the back. As we sip, the taste opens with deeply charred and roasted malts, smooth vanillas, sweet toffees, marmalade sugars, gingerbread cookie breadiness, dark chocolates, fruity cherry booziness, and green bark. The peak hits with continued dark pit fruitiness and booze, with that bitter char base, grass and bark, mineral, bittered muskiness, and chalky yeast. The ending wash comes with ash, tobacco leafiness, chalkboard, insanely roasted cereal grain, macerated strawberry fruitiness, brandy syrups, unsweetened dark chocolate nibs, banana esters, fiery booze, and fusel chemical medicinals. The aftertaste breathes of graphite and pencil eraser, burnt wood ash, roasted coconuts, chalk, bitterly roasted coffee and chocolate malts, lightly fusel booziness, mustiness, pear fruitiness, crumbling tree bark, and plastics. The body is full and syrupy, and the carbonation is medium, but with stark initial prickle. Each sip gives thick slurp, smack, cream, and froth, with pleasant finishing pop. The mouth is left heavily coated, but with quickly drying chalky astringency across the tongue and hard palate, with sugary stickiness to the corners of the mouth. The abv was appropriate, and the beer is a slow sipper.

Overall, what we enjoyed most about this beer was its aroma. This aspect was just so over the top robust, with woodiness from out of nowhere, char and ash, fruity sweets to match, and general complexity. The blend really comes through and each individual component finds its mate, striking harmony. The flavoring follows nicely, with just as much punch through the taste. Here, however, things did not strike as beautiful a balance, but rather just swam together in the same pool. The booze was way forward, even for the style, but it did offer some nice sweetness towards the front of the sip, contributing to the flavoring itself in a way that many beers lack. The sip was slurpy, creamy, and coating, helping to offset some of that brutal chalky astringency. This is a huge, impressive offering from Dark Horse, and we can’t wait to try the barrel aged version.

Serving type: bottle

06-14-2013 00:14:56 | More by TheBrewo