Adrian Tierney-Jones Imperial Stout

I was in that most hallowed of brewing halls, where the Burton Union system of Marston’s works its whisper of magic. Standing on a gantry, I watched the ever so slow and stately drip-drip-drip of fermenting beer, which was emerging from massive oak barrels to pass through elegantly curved swan-necks into a vast rectangular stainless steel trough. All around I was surrounded by similar constructions undergoing similarly sibilant activities.

On the day I visited, as is the case most days, it was Pedigree that was undergoing fermentation, but earlier on in that morning, I had tasted an imperial stout, which also happened to be the first that had ever gone through the Burton Union system, which as head brewer Patrick McGinty explained, ‘We know that we get the best flavours out of the union system and know that time in oak barrels will help’.

As we talked, we also tasted this 7.4% imperial stout, that had been brewed under the branding of Horninglow Street, Marston’s collection of specialist brews originally developed on their small DE14 brew kit. The beer was vinous, potent, smooth, tarry, mellow, coffee sweet and dry in the finish, a beast of a beer that has led me to think more deeply about imperial stout, especially as it is ideal for now as the days have got shorter and the air cooler.

Imperial stout: the phrase has a gravitas to it, a sober sound, patriotic even, God Save the Queen. And once the be-whiskered Victorian gentleman with the deep voice has beseeched God to care for the monarch, he sits in his favourite armchair and looks longingly at a stemmed glass of a dark-hued imperial stout, with its creamy collar of foam and the promise of rich roasty flavours.

Even though it is one of the on-trend beers of the moment, with craft breweries all around the world making various versions of the style (many of which go under the name of ‘pastry stout’, which never fails to raise a smile as it reminds me of a rubbish comedian from my youth called Mr Pastry), its name still rings with the echoes of the 19th century, to which it indeed belongs. However, like a lot of beers that have been around for several centuries (hello porter, hello IPA), murkiness obscures its origins.

Could it have been the descendant of strong dark beers exported to the Russian Empire towards the end of the 18th century, when Catherine the Great was reputed to enjoy them? In his book Amber Gold & Black, Martyn Cornell quotes a 1796 diary entry from artist Joseph Farington: ‘I drank some Porter Mr Lindoe had from Thrale’s Brewhouse. He said it was specially brewed for the Empress of Russia and would keep seven years.’ Presumably, the strength of this beer helped with the keeping quality so maybe we are looking at a proto-imperial stout, which was yet to find its place in the world.

Then there’s the imperial tag. Given that Great Britain was busy creating a global empire, could imperial have been seen by patriotic brewers as an apt description to describe their strongest stouts? Or maybe there is a simpler story with imperial being another word to describe something strong? After all, imperial units were defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824.

However, speculation aside, what we do know about those long ago days is that these were beers with a high percentage of coloured malts (notably brown malt) in the grist and also highly hopped. ‘Stout’, by the way, was the word of the time that described strong porters and presumably moving on up to imperial seemed a logical step.

Throughout the Victorian era, imperial stouts were a common part of many a brewery’s portfolio, strong and expensive sipping beers, and along with barley wine John Barleycorn’s answer to wine, perhaps. They were also beers whose health benefits members of the medical profession in the years before the Great War regularly enthused about in the pages of The Lancet.

However, if we move on right to the current day, the imperial stout remains a strong fixture with many a brewery, but (and you knew that there was going to be a but didn’t you), just like the meaning of an IPA has been stretched and stretched until it covers a multitude of beers (or sins, depending on your POV), so has imperial stout gone down that route. For some breweries it’s not enough for an imperial stout to be about potency and a delicious assemblage of roastiness, dark malt and richness as I once discovered on a visit to a Mikkeller bar in Copenhagen a couple of years ago.

That evening, I really, really fancied an imperial stout, and the chalk-board showed that there were three on tap, but here’s the rub — one had all manner of cake mix in, another was brewed with a sahti yeast and the final one full of fruit. I had the one with cake mix, a 10.5% collaboration between Evil Twin and Westbrook Brewing from South Carolina, called Imperial Mexican Biscotti Cake Break. It was rather delicious if a bit sweet, but even as I sipped it, I really, really hankered for an imperial stout, an urge that I recognised on that morning in Burton when I studied and sampled and surveyed the flavoured landscape of Marston’s No. 2 Horninglow Imperial Stout. God save the Burton Union.

Adrian Tierney-Jones

Voted ‘Beer Writer of the Year 2017’ by the British Guild of Beer Writers, Adrian Tierney-Jones is a freelance journalist whose work also appears in the Daily Telegraph, Original Gravity, Sunday Times Travel Magazine, Daily Star and Imbibe amongst many others.

He’s been writing books since 2002 and they include West Country Ales, Great British Pubs, Britain’s Beer Revolution (co-written with Roger Protz) and his latest The Seven Moods of Craft Beer; general editor of 1001 Beers To Try Before You Die and contributor to The Oxford Companion to Beer, World Beer and 1001 Restaurants You Must Experience Before You Die.

Chair of Judges at the World Beer Awards and also on the jury at the Brussels Beer Challenge, Dutch Beer Challenge and the Copa Latinoamericana de Cervezas Artesanales in Peru.

Blogs at http://maltworms.blogspot.co.uk