For 2011, the highlight of my craft beer year was the Beer Bloggers Conference in Portland, OR. It was a chance to meet many other craft beer explorers, learn some tricks of the trade and sample a ridiculous amount of great beer. Conference friends 2 Beer Guys and Seacoast Beverage Labs teamed up this December to create a beer advent calendar featuring a different beer blogger and a favorite winter beer for each day of the month. For my day, I picked Missoula’s Big Sky Brewing Co.’s Ivan the Terrible Imperial Stout.
I first enjoyed Ivan the Terrible on Thanksgiving evening in 2008. Although it was only 5 degrees outside, I wanted to sit outside by the fire pit, enjoy a good beer and check out the stars. I brushed off the snow, started a strong fire and poured some Ivan into a glass. Ever since, Ivan has been a heavily anticipated winter tradition. It is as black as that first moon-less night with a tan head. Aromas of boozy bourbon greet your nose along with a sweet richness. Flavors of bourbon and vanilla mix perfectly with rich, viscous stout. There’s some dark roasted chocolate cake in there, too. The bourbon never leaves, but it never completely dominates either. Ivan is big, bold and full of flavor. It’s a perfect sipping beer while contemplating everything from the trivial to the serious on these long winter nights.
Ivan the Terrible is a barrel-aged, bottle conditioned imperial stout boasting 10% abv and 65 ibus. For this review, I cracked open a 2010 version that was Bottle No. 2635 of 3800. It was aged for a minimum of 3 months in American Oak Bourbon Barrels, then cellared by me for quite a few more. As you can tell from the bottle numbering, it’s a limited release and distributed in 750 ml bottles and some kegs here and there. Unfortunately, production for 2011 has been pushed back into 2012 so it is going to be a while before the next round is out. I hear through the grapevine that Big Sky didn’t have enough bourbon barrels to age the current batch. Trust me, it is worth the wait.
It’s when Big Sky Brewing Co. takes a break from brewing up Moose Drool, Powder Hound, IPA and their other popular staples that their talents really shine. Nowhere is that more evident than with Ivan the Terrible Imperial Stout. Unfortunately, that was the only 2010 Ivan I had in my cellar. Anyone want to hook me up with another?
