Storm King Stout by Victory Brewing

A few months ago, we drove to Evansville, IN to go on a beer run for beer we could not get here. One of the beers we brought back was DirtWolf Double IPA by Victory Brewing Company. That was one heck of a beer. I absolutely loved it. Well, when we traveled down to Florida and the Carolinas to see family, we made it into another beer run. One of the stores had DirtWolf, so I picked up some of that. Right next to that beer was Storm King Stout. I looked it up on Rate Beer and it has a 97 by style and 100 overall. So of course, I grabbed two 4-packs of it. Storm King was in my beer advent calendar. Yesterday was the day I was able to try it.

Storm King is an Imperial Stout. It is 9.1% ABV. It pours a deep black with a nice tan head. The aroma is a nice roasted malt but also some hoppy bitterness to it. I took a sip and it was really nice. With that first sip, I got the roasted malts but also that bit of hops.

With other stouts and especially the Christmas Bomb! I reviewed, the more it warms up, the more flavorful it becomes. I let this one set a few minutes and took another sip. The chocolate and coffee notes started to become a bit more up front. I let it set a few more minutes and man, it was coming alive. I waited again and this time all of those complex flavors were wonderful. I figured that if it is coming directly out of the refrigerator, I would want to wait about 20 minutes for it to get to the right temperature. If you want to taste this beer open up, start drinking it immediately after taking it out of the fridge and take sips every few minutes. This is a wonderful stout but it could be characterized as part IPA also.

I really wish that Victory distributed to the St. Louis area. They have some wonderful beers. I still have some more of this great beer if someone would like to have a tasting party. I give this 4.5 hop flowers. It is so good.

Victory Brewing Company