BIG American Double Imperial Stout goes to the test... with a Dane coming to the top!

In the grand scheme of things, when it was time to have a good old Russian Imperial Stout... I know I could sit back and relax, enjoy some good simple ABV and enjoy the malty and sometimes big goodness. Then I realized stouts could also be big in ABV beyond my comprehension.

Enter two big giants ready to do battle on the American Double Imperial Stout beer war. Here we have Mikkeller Black (17.5 ABV), in it's standard form (don't get me into all those wax capped bourbon aged barrel variations of I could only dream about tasting..), against... an evil looking incarnation... a very silverly looking devil of it's own from Avery brewery... Mephistophele's Stout (ABV 16.8).

I tasted and compared both of these. This was great for a nice winter day as snow has been falling of late. Strangely enough, I actually prefer these high ABV concoctions to other big carbonated beers with lower ABV. Sometimes sipping these is like imbibing a great wine. One was truly great indeed! Can you guess which one?

Only way you can find out is watching below! (or try them both yourself!)

Cheers!

Oktoberfest starts out with an Emperor gone bananas...

What gives with naming a beer after a controversial historic figure? No I take that back.. what gives with naming a SERIES of beers after a few controversial historical figures?

Well it's really simple. It's a way to get yourself noticed I guess. But what really matters is what's in the product if you are an imbibing conquesting hero.

Avery Brewing Company based out of Bolder Colorado, has created an Imperial Oktoberfest Lager, the only seasonal Lager they make (I think). I am not one to go for funky labeling, gimmicks of the sort, things that would make you turn you head and give yourselves a shake. In the realm of the numerous strongarm leaders that have come our way, why would you want to associate yourselves with a person possibly of controversy, and possibly put it out as a product you want to sell???

The reality is though, for Avery here, 3 of the "dictator beers" in their so called series and I emphasize that in quotes... I am not sure if that even matters? Perhaps when I think of the Romanovs... (a legacy that came in to fashion after the end of the repressive Soviet Union, used to promote an Imperial Stout called the Czar) and the Maharaja (an Imperial Ale) for a legacy well... I don't know the history that is so gone from our current past and perhaps that makes it easier to grab this bottle off the shelf. Sometimes you just can't win and you can guarantee to offend anyone. I don't find this product offensive, but perhaps someone might? He is on the bottle simply because as the company mentions he himself loved beer, so lets just keep it at that. The term Kaiser does not mean dictator, it means emperor and it's still used often. German soccer star Franz Beckenbauer's knickname is even "der Kaiser".

Hence forth... politics/history/debates aside... we have from Avery... The Kaiser... because after all, this is about imbibing, and imbibing GOOD beer in this case.

In the end... what we got is a great Oktoberfest beer to start the Fall season out of Boulder CO.

Check out the video review for the final thoughts. ENJOY!