Storm King Stout - Victory Brewing Company

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BA SCORE
92
exceptional
-
3,688 Ratings

rAvg: 4.11
pDev: 12.41%
Reviews: 2395
Hads: 1293

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Brewed by:
Victory Brewing Company

Pennsylvania, United States

Style | ABV
Russian Imperial Stout | 9.10% ABV

Availability: Year-round. bottle (2219), on-tap (107), cask (57), growler (10), nitro-tap (1), nitro-bottle (1).

Notes:
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Reviews

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Reviews by Pahn:

Pahn

New York

3.23/5 rDev -21.4%
look: 4.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 3 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 2.5

12oz bottle into Duvel tulip. "Best by June 6, 2016" printed on the bottle.

Appearance: Free pour yields a two inch, frothy tan head that dissipates slowly leaving a wall of lacing. Pours a solid black with red brown highlights and leaves sprawling continents of lacing.

Smell: They're not kidding about the Pacific Northwest hops. Heavy American hop aroma, pungent, piny, citrusy, tropical fruity. Underneath is an almost equally strong note of caramel and raisin. Very nice.

Taste: First sip: maximal hop bitterness along with a well-melded flavor of citrusy/piny hops with cookies and caramel, resolving as roasted malt with a long, hot finish. I like the blending, but the hops and malt each come across as pretty one-dimensional. The bitterness is definitely pushing it.

Later sips are dominated by hop bitterness and piny, somewhat dank and citrusy hop flavor. If this bitterness is supposed to keep the richness in check, it succeeds... but it also obliterates all the deep, delicious malt flavors I want from a Russian Imperial Stout. Some nice flavors show through occasionally, but in general it's just one hoppy punch to the face after another.

I wanted to give this more points due to the brewer's intention being to make a hoppy imperial stout, but this fails when compared to both standard RISs and that very intention. It's so unbalanced... and every time I sniff the glass, I perceive exactly what the beer *wants* to taste like, and every time I sip, I'm disappointed.

Mouthfeel: Full side of medium bodied. Overcarbonated; the heavy carbonation combines with the giant IBU to clear out any semblance of subtlety or depth. Bitterness considered on its own is quite nice though. Lingering heat is also pleasant and appropriate.

Overall: The beer isn't as unappealing as I'm making out perhaps, but it definitely commits the cardinal sin of smelling *way* better than it tastes. It also takes a style often ridiculed for its boldness and rather than marrying those extreme flavors and making them sing, just blasts you with bitterness. While there's some decent flavor underneath, I can't handle the imbalance.

Serving type: bottle

10-08-2011 01:41:20 | More by Pahn