Herevana – 8 Wired – Gorky Park
8 Wired Gorky Park is a monster of a beer, but I brought it because it’s from 8 Wired, it’s and aged stout and it has a lovely name, and no I’m not singing “that” song. I’ve checked and I can’t possibly have had this before, it is a new beer.
8 Wired Gorky Park made in Warkworth, 🇳🇿 New Zealand, this is more standard as a Stout – Imperial style but does carry a 12.6% ABV
Again the big glass, and still with the Beta Band on the music player, the second half of the album is the final live gig, and it is by any measure brilliant
This has been warming whilst I’ve been having my Opium Cake, it’s probably not near enough warmed, but it is goign in the big glass to swim about a bit and enjoy itself. AT 12.6% it’s getting up there in the maddest beers I’ve drink level of alcohol, not quite the bottle of wine stuff, but It would give it a run for the money, It is priced like a bottle of wine, sometimes you just have to to these things.
The label says “Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels”. I know I’ve got a penchant for repetition but this made me smile.
There’s a fair amount of vanilla on the nose when you open this, and it pours like it has lumps in it, dollops of foam plopping into the glass forming quite the substance of head that just collapses to a smaller but decent version of it self, coffee coloured atop a coal black brooding beer.
In the glass a lot of vanilla, I’m not generally a Bourbon drinker, I’m easily confused or led on this.
It has a mouthfeel where there’s quite an intense moment, a tussle between the alcohol note and something a lot sweeter (I though it was like Cherries), before it just all runs away and fades to leave you wondering.
There is nothing remarkable about this beer. There I’ve said it. It’s a big stout, done in Bourbon barrels. I don’t know if I’m relived or disappointed at that thought. In one sense I’m relieved that this isn’t the big Stout to end the Stout war. In one sense I’m disappointed that this doesn’t actually come with anything other than a large payload of alcohol and Bourbon barrel ageing. What I was expecting though when that was what it said it was on the label?
In other news the spelling errors appear to be creeping up :-), a sign that I’ve taken a bit of time to ponder and that the payload is paying out.
What Hallertau (And others) do, is pack this is smaller bottles or cans, 440ml is quite the size, and the large can size can be taken in a number of waysI suppose. I know 8Wired do the smaller size cans, I just had Opium Cake, and clearly they covet that beer, respect it perhaps. That this is in a bigger can could be a reflection on just what the outcome was, at some point they decided how many cans went to market. What was the cachet in having one? But I digress into an area that I shouldn’t go to, or be worried about, it is both a sellers and buyers market, if I didn’t want this I would not have brought it, and they’re selling it as they see fit. Everyone is a winner.
And as another digression, aside from the integrity of the can there is no reason, apparently, that you could not cellar age cans, as opposed to bottles, of High Alcohol Stout.
But back to the game, I really don’t know that the 8 Wired people would be talking this up in the staff room as a success story, it is, for me, just not the beer that I expected, based on the ‘strong’ name and the 12.6%, I don’t know that the non barrel aged version would be like, so I don’t have a baseline.
The Pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8 on the arbitrary number scale. It’s not the next, or latest, big thing, it’s really not even a thing, and as sad as it makes me, becuase I like to be positive, I really don’t think I got what I wanted from this. Wherein I fall back on the gap between expectation and delivery, which is what we call the dissapointment. What it is though is a big beer without that alcohol tang, making it alarmingly easy going and quickly drinkable, with added sweetness in the form of Vanilla or Bourbon afternotes, and a lovely engaging feel about it.
I guess the beer won on the day.
8 Wired Say : A big heavy Russian Imperial Stout aged for two years in American bourbon barrels. A regal brew fir for evil empires of all shapes and forms, inspired by poetry and raised to the sounds of industrial heavy metal.
Herevana beers are those I drink at home, I’m not at some beer festival, like, for instance, Beervana, but am just in my kitchen, usually, dining room table, sometimes, or outside, occasionally, where I can take an average picture and write in real time about the beer that I’ve invested in, both in a monetary and emotional way.
Philip himself.
Stout – Imperial
The “Imperial Stout” or “Double Stout” is an intensely-flavored, big, very dark reddish-brown to black colored ale with a wide range of flavor balances and regional interpretations. Roasty-burnt malt with deep dark or dried fruit flavors, and a warming, bittersweet finish. American versions have more bitterness, roasted character, and finishing hops, while the English varieties, or “Russian Imperial Stout” (RIS), reflect a more complex specialty malt character and a more forward ester profile. Like a black barleywine with every dimension of flavor coming into play. More complex, with a broader range of possible flavors than lower-gravity stouts
A life just as ordinary 