Established in 2012
5224 SE 26th Ave Portland, OR 97202
+1(503) 208-3416 |
Draft at Loyal Legion. Dark, clear golden pour; small, creamy white head. Light smoky aroma, smoked meats. Taste carries that smoky edge to a full bodied, bready base, the smoked malts working in tandem with the weizen yeast for some fruity and sweet flavors. Very well balanced.
Draft at Prime Tap - West End. Hazy yellow pour with a frothy white head. Tropical aroma, pineapple, zesty. Taste is heavy and juicy, fruity, mild bitterness. Nice!
Draught@CBC2016. Dark brown colour with a beigeish brown head. Aroma is sweet malts, caramel, dried fruits, some liquorice, mild toast and alcohol. Flavour is sweet malts, toffee, dried fruits, some liquorice, spices and mild alcohol tones too.
Draught@CBC2016. Hazy orangeish golden colour with a mediumsized foamy white head. Aroma is crisp bready malts, some rice, plum and a bit toffee tones. Flavour is kind of bready and biscuity along with rice, plum and some slight earthy tones. Smooth and soft to drink.
Pale amber with a finger of clean white foam.
The nose shows moderately intense notes of ripe kiwi and guava.
The palate is well carbonated and medium bodied. Pineapple with hints of cannabis.
Draught@SBWF. Coppery brown colour with a small white head. Aroma is whiskey, some coffee, cherries, mild toasted tones. Flavour is kinda white peppery with some coffee, ashes, cherries and some tanninic tones with mild mild whiskeyish elements. Warming finish.
Draught@CBC2016. Black colour, small brown head. Aroma is spices, some spruce, mild floral and liquorice notes. Flavour is liquorice, some spices, mild alcohol as well as some sour wooden notes.
Most Most Premium, a RIS by old familiar Gigantic in Portland, Oregon (founded 2007), a brewery which charmed me already back in my early discoveries of U.S. craft brewing, aged in port barrels - there is no way this can go wrong. From a stubby 50 cl bottle, 2022 vintage. Medium sized, deep mocha-beige, densely creamy head, slowly opening but leaving a creamy ring and flat 'islands' in the middle until, after about a quarter of an hour, it has vanished completely; opaque black robe, allowing no light to shine through even when held against a bright lamp. Aroma of melting 'fondant' chocolate, cooked blackberries, tawny port piercing through but never dominating the beer, toffee, bayleaf, ground walnuts, liquorice (quite pronounced), molasses, brandy, vanilla-scenting oak wood, elderberry syrup, fig jam, sirop de Liège, chewing gum or even acacia gum, nougat, reduced red wine sauce, venison, sweet teriyaki or even a touch of oyster sauce, red wine-poached pear, almond, wet leather, ketjap manis, hint of rainwater, tobacco leaves and tar. Densely sweet onset, candied cherries mingled with fig jam, candied dates and medlar, with this sourish undertone adding a vinous touch and continuing all the way through a softly but adequately carbonated, very full and oily, 'heavy' body of toffeeish, black-chocolatey and nougat-like malts, remaining sweet yet acquiring a dash of coffee-like roasted bitterness further on (I guess this is the 'Russian' part of it, in the current Anglo-Saxon meaning). Notes of umami, primarily soy sauce and oyster sauce, accompany everything without pushing themselves too much onto the beer; meanwhile this underlying sourish (blue grape) streak gains momentum and combines with the residual sweetness in the end to indeed form a flavour combo reminiscent of tawny port - the oaky vanilla and drying tannins also unfolding at the right moment, further accentuating the vinous 'subcharacter' of this many-layered beer. Some citrusy (orange peel) hops are noticeable, too, not even in flavour but even in retronasal aroma - we are very clearly in good old U.S. territory here. Intense and demanding, but at the same time very classic for an U.S. style 'impy': this is exactly what I was longing for when buying this expensive bottle. It does not disappoint: the port adds more sourness than sweetness in this case (a basic red wine flavour, so to speak, even with a certain degree of grape skin astringency after swallowing), but this is still far removed from the 'sour stouts' sometimes resulting from wine barrel ageing. I guess port, contrary to wine, still contains enough sugars (and not enough bacteria perhaps) to keep the beer in the sweeter side of town instead of going all sour stout-like and though I suspect that this Most Most Premium is more than solid enough to withstand actual wine barrel ageing too, I am glad that this variant conveys everything I was expecting from a good old-fashioned barrel aged U.S. imperial stout - and more. Not the easiest one around to pour down on a still benign summer night, I guess, but so rewarding and complex. Gigantic, in spite of being now over a decade old, is still going strong in these challenging times, that much is certain.
Score | 6.87 |
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