Karl Strauss Brewing Company - Wreck Alley Imperial Stout

 

What's up everybody? It's Saturday night. Been watching some hockey today and overall, it's been a damn solid Saturday. So, what better way to cap the night off than with a good beer? 

Tonight I'm drinking Karl Strauss Wreck Alley Imperial Stout. This is part of Karl's Imperial Collection and comes in at 9.5% abv. I think I had this a couple years ago and if I'm remembering correctly, I liked it quite a bit. So enough talk, let's open this one up and get to drinking.

The Wreck Alley pours out very dark. It's not quite pitch black. I'm getting the slightest bit of a dark brown at the bottom of the glass. My light source isn't the best so I'm saying it's dark brown. There was about a finger and a half of a creamy off white head. As the head dissipates back into itself it leaves behind a really solid lacing. This looks like a really nice Imperial Stout. Let's get the nose on the Wreck Alley.

Wow. Big coffee. Big Vanilla. A lot of caramel in this as well. It's really sweet smelling but not overly so. I'm getting some bread like characters. Sweet breads, maybe like a pastry of some kind. There's some nice chocolate in this as well. A nice mix of some cocoa nibs, dark chocolate, milk chocolate. There's a slight dark fruit character, red raisins and a little bit of plum. But yeah, the big star of this is coffee and vanilla. Really nice. Let's see how Wreck Alley tastes.

Right away you get the coffee. It's really nice. That's followed up immediately by that vanilla, caramel and toffee kind of character. It's very creamy up front and sweet. Middle of the mouth you get more of that creamy mouth feel and that initial espresso roast kind of flavor. You get some of the cocoa in the middle of the mouth as well. It's all mixing together well in the mouth. The vanilla and coffee work so well together. Back end of this you get a lot more of that espresso roast and dark chocolate. There's maybe even a slight tobacco character on the back end as well. This is a really solid tasting beer.

So overall, Wreck Alley is really good. This is definitely much better than I remember it being. It really shines on taste. It smells really nice but for as good as it smells it just tastes much better. Everything blends together really well. 

Karl Strauss was the brewery that got me into craft beer so to see they're still making amazing beers is really good to see. If you can find this in your area I'd recommend it. Good mouth feel, good flavors, really easy drinking. 9.5% you don't taste it at all. So yeah, pick it up if you see it. Cheers!

Rating: A