The beer scene here in Winnipeg is exploding. Oxus has officially released it’s first beers with more on the way. Kilter has announced their location at 80 Sherbrook Street adding even more awesomeness to that neighbourhood, Trans Canada announced it’s first core beer with an Amber Ale (still hoping that Brett Pale Ale will make it to the list of cores) and breweries keep pumping out fun beers I want to try like Strawbarian Milkshake IPA coming out today from Barn Hammer.

I also want to take a quick opportunity to highlight a couple of upcoming events.

First, Joel Carleton of Bee’s Knees is partnering with Winnipeg Tasting Tours for a Beer and Chocolate tasting. It sounds delicious, so if you like those things and are curious about them being paired together, consider checking it out.

If you don’t have plans for this weekend, you should check out the Brandon Beer Festival. It’ll have a bunch of local breweries as well as others from outside of the province. It’s been growing as the years go on and it’s a fun event. Check out details here.

Now with that, to the main reason for this post. I’ve written about Torque on many occasions and feel that they are really pumping out some fun and unique beers. I wanted to take a chance to write about their Russian Imperial Stout.

Fake News – Russian Imperial Stout

Torque has become a fun brewery here in Winnipeg. From their start they’ve focused on producing a variety of beer options and have always made sure to keep their taproom stocked with some new small batches for people to try out. This Russian Imperial Stout is a different recipe from last years’ Konstantine but still brings the same rich, velvety approach to a Russian imperial stout. It also pokes a bit of fun at our neighbours to the South.

There are numerous styles of stouts ranging from Dry Stouts, to Porters, and Oyster stouts and my favorite Imperial Stouts.  Russian Imperial Stouts are a style that I’ve really started to enjoy and appreciate.  These beers age incredibly well and change over time.  This style of beer was originally brewed in the 1800s by Thrale’s brewery in London England for export to the court of Catherine II of Russia. This same beer is brewed today now under the Courage brewery name and is called Courage Russian Imperial Stout (RIS).   Ranging between 8%-12% alcohol with strong malt notes of coffee, caramel, chocolate and dark fruit (plums, prunes or raisins for example), it is a perfect beer for a winter night.

ABV – 10%
Appearance – Pours a deep dark black with a nice tan head.
Smell – Smell roast malt, cocoa and some subtle vanilla.
Taste – There is a nice roasted malt flavour here as well as some of that cocoa and malt sweetness. The flavours are a bit disparate right now. The beer was good, but I think it will get better with some time.
Mouth Feel – Good carbonation with a velvety mouth feel.
Overall Thoughts – Overall it was a pretty good Russian imperial stout. I’m a fan of this style and I wasn’t disappointed.
Do I like it? – Yes, I did enjoy this beer. As I said above, the flavours are all there but they don’t quite work with one another yet. I have more than one bottle and I am going to let the others sit a bit. I look forward to trying it with a bit of age.

I am a bit late getting this out, so I am not sure if you’ll find this anywhere. They only produced a limited number of bottles. If you got some, good on ya. If you got more than one, I’d set one aside.

I’ve got some more posts lined up and look forward to getting them up. Thanks for following along.

-Beer Winnipeg