Riddle of Steel

"Crom is strong! If I die, I have to go before him, and he will ask me, 'What is the riddle of steel?' If I don't know it, he will cast me out of Valhalla and laugh at me." 

~Conan the Barbarian

Ah, Russian Imperial Stouts... Dark and huge and full of flavor, whether plain or aged on liquor/wine barrels, aged with espresso, vanilla, or other adjuncts, they command respect from beer nerds. Check the beer advocate top beers lists and you'll see a wide range of them from the world's best breweries. What you'll miss are a couple of descriptors that are high upon my personal beer preferences: dry finish and crushable.

To rectify this, I copied the grain bill and approach used in Jester King's Black Metal, a beer that I've never actually had before. I figure any Imperial stout fermented with Wyeast 3711 is going to finish pretty dry though (I have suspicions that I could just put tapwater on a 3711 yeast cake and end up with 4% beer). To give the final beer a bit more interest, I added a secondary addition of espresso beans, ancho chiles, vanilla bean, and cacao nibs that were suggested in a homebrewtalk clone thread about one of my favorite imperial stouts, Prairie Artisanal Ales' Bomb! 

The goal was to brew a sort of hybrid stout with huge flavours and nice mouthfeel (from 3711's glycerol production) that could still be mashed with decent efficiency (since FG would end so low) and that was reminiscent of belgian strong ales in terms of being "digestible" aka crushable. Since I had decided before the beer was even formulated that it would be named Riddle of Steel, I wanted to also include some layers of flavor for one "to contemplate, on the tree of woe". Oh and I figured it better be at least 11% ABV, as subtle is not the strong suit of PBBC ...

One thing I was a little worried about before I brewed this for the first time was the large amount of roasted barley plus Carafa 3 in the grain bill. I've had some really bad luck with black IPAs that have a burnt rubber/ashtray flavor, and this recipe used WAY more dark roasty malts than any of my BIPAs. Also in general I'm always worried that a brewer will say Carafa 3 when they actually mean Carafa3 Special. However, my concerns were unfounded, and if anything the wort and final base beer was pretty chocolate forward rather than super burnt/bitter/roasty.

Grain Bill
15.43 lbs (7.0 kg) 2 row

1.1 lb (0.5 kg) roasted barley
12 oz (0.34 kg) black malt

12 oz (0.34 kg) carafa 3
12 oz (0.34 kg) chocolate malt
7 oz (0.25 kg) crystal 60L
7 oz (0.25 kg) crystal 120L
1.1 lb (0.5 kg) brown sugar

1.5 oz CTZ at 60 min; whirl floc at 10min; 1 oz CTZ at flame out (just because).

Aerate the wort well and then pitch a large healthy starter of Wyeast 3711 at 65F and allow to naturally rise to 75F over 72 hours and hold there until hitting FG. Transfer into a CO2 purged keg on top of a hop sack containing 1 cup espresso beans (whole), 3 sliced ancho chiles, 6 oz cacao nibs, and 2 vanilla beans. Allow to secondary until heat from chiles is forward, pull sack, and put on tap at 2.0 volumes CO2.

Beer Specs
OG: 1.095

FG: 1.008-1.012
IBU: 51
SRM: BLACK (79 by my calculator lol)
Scoville: ~1000

Tasting Notes and Comments:

This is actually a difficult beer to provide notes for, because it usually stays on tap for 2 months and it definitely changes in both flavor profile and aroma as it ages. I am pretty sure this is a key part of the riddle of steel :)

Appearance: Impenetrably black with a khaki head that persists with great lacing. Certainly looks the part of an imperial stout.

Aroma: coffee forward, but notes of roasted malts and a decent aroma of dark chocolate (think gourmet hot chocolate).

Flavor: This is where it gets weird. Initially, the beer is really coffee forward, then as it warms the chiles and heat come forward. There's always a cocoa/dark chocolate flavor, but it only becomes dominant after a month or so in the keg. In between, there are about 3-4 weeks on tap where all of the competing flavours just meld and hit there stride together. The result was almost exactly what I was going for; the only flavor that never seemed to compete/come into its own was the vanilla. The alcohol is never really present; this is a dangerously drinkable beer. There are also some orange flavours that either arise from the CTZ flame out or the yeast (or both). 

Mouthfeel: I'm totally infatuated with the 3711 yeast as a source of mouthfeel in dry beers. It regularly finishes at 1.002-1.004 in saisons and "normal" sized beers, and it never seems thin due to the glycerol that it produces. In this beer, it really works to provide a silky mouthfeel to the finished beer that is reminiscent of a much higher FG without finishing sweet. It still tastes like a big beer and is a sipper but there is just enough saison in it to be crushable.

Finish: As I've mentioned, it finishes very dry and invites you to have another sip. This is especially true when fresh as the chiles provide some heat that makes you eager to have another drink. When you get past that, the final flavors in your mouth are roasted malts and coffee, but with a dry finish. 

General Impression: This was exactly the beer I set out to make. At some level, it's not surprising if you take 2 world class beers from beer advocate and combine them that the result is excellent I guess. But I'm going to count this as a win for beer design, since I took an idea (let's use the super-attenuative 3711 to brew non-saison big beer) and everything worked out perfectly.