Sureshot: Pohjala: BA Series 1: Doom Heaven Hill and Maple Barrels (England: Imperial Stout: 13% ABV)
Visual: Black. Large creamy brown head.
Nose: Smooth. Chocolate cake. Caramel. Coconut. Golden syrup cake slices. Honeycomb.
Body: Thick and creamy. Cadbury’s cream egg centres. Cocoa. Maple syrup. Vanilla. Alcohol presence. Blended whisky. Slight sour cream.
Finish: Maple syrup. Golden syrup cake sponge. Creamy chocolate. Alcohol presence. Blended whisky. Subtle sour cream. Vanilla.
Conclusion: Is this a dessert Stout? Because my guts say no, as does the description, it is just a barrel aged impy, but if you handed me this blind I would swear it is a dessert stout as the base beer and the barrel aging combine to make it so creamy and sweet.
So, yeah the base feels very creamy, very thick. I have previously commented that a bunch of maple barrel aged stouts came across as overly milky and empty and worried that may be a feature of doing that. This dodges that completely, almost Cadbury’s cream egg like in its cream goodness soaked in creamy chocolate.
There’s lots of syrupy notes, golden syrup soaked sponge, something I am going to wave at and call maple syrup in a pinch, that kind of thing. It feels like some of it is the bourbon sweetness bringing vanilla into the creamy character. It would seem obvious to attribute it to the maple barrels but I hesitate to do so as I’ve not seen it in most previous encounters with maple barrel ageing, so it feels like a more complex interaction than that, but it probably doesn’t hurt.
So, despite not being a dessert stout technically, it feels like a dessert treat, it hasn’t got the subtlety or complexity of my favorite imperial stouts. The imperial stout style is, as always, a super competitive group, so high bar. This is simple, sweet, creamy , basically big chewy fun. Also it seems to be a data point towards disproving my hypothesis that maple barrel aged stouts becoming milky and empty.
On the..well not down side, a thing to be noted side, there is an alcohol presence. Not an alcohol burn, but it is there, boozy as some might say. Not surprising considering the abv, it is a style I like but I know a bunch of people this would put off.
Overall, a sweet treat. Not a must have, but an example of maple used right.
Background: This is a Heaven Hills bourbon and maple barrel aged imperial stout. Which I have to admit did make me nervous to grab it. I have had good experiences with Sureshot for the most part, but my recent experiences with several maple aged impys have been kind of milky and empty centred things, and I was wondering how much of that was due to the maple aging interaction. Still, I grabbed this from Independent Spirit, rolled the dice and gave it a chance. Anyway, base of this beer is the Pohjala collab beer “Welcome To Your Doom”, that has then been aged in oak for 15 months. I don’t think I tried Welcome To Your Doom, but I may have just forgotten, had a lot of beers over the years. Yet again went with Mallavora: What if better never comes? As backing music. I will have different backing music soon I promise! Does work well with a big impy stout.
