Herevana – Three Sisters – Chocolate Tsarevich

Three Sisters Chocolate Tsarevich. Chocolate Imperial Russian Imperial Stout. After a smorgasbord of IPA’s and a surge of the more traditional West Coast style (that’s clear not hazy) beers there’s always room and time to have a change of style, taste and experience, and so it’s a couple of Stouts.

Pastry Stouts are generally enjoyable and offer, of course, added flavour, and fuller mouthfeel. I feel I’ve gone upmarket a little with this

Three Sisters Brewery Ltd of course make Chocolate Tsarevich in Oakura, Taranaki, 🇳🇿 New Zealand as a Stout – Flavored / Pastry beer with a  9.0% ABV and 50 IBU, the 500ml bottle is 3.6 standard drinks in NZ.

A bottle beer, it hisses as you open it, the aroma though is confusing, so I’m not confident about making a comment.

The pour is lovely, pitch back beer with a really creamy and aerated head that shows no sign of fatigue.

The aroma in the glass is still, for me, a bit imponderable, and defies my limited senses.

The taste. Well you could be confused for talking it up and expecting quite a bit from a pastry stout, and so it was with heavy heart that I felt that I’d worked myself up into a lather only to self-realise that I’d made a rookie error.

This isn’t big full bulging mouthfeel beer. It’s not even big full chocolate beer. A confusion of feeling, which in part comes from this not really being ‘full’ or ‘chocolate’, both the things that I would have hoped were ‘given’ and that I’d be looking for the twist or the emphasis on something else in this.

I like Three Sisters beers a lot, this doesn’t put me off at all, you just can’t like every beer.

The Pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 7 on the arbitrary number scale. Chocolate Imperial Russian Imperial Stout. I don’t even know how those words together. I found myself at odds with that off-key flavour profile, which is disconcerting as they’re familiar but yet out of place and not really wanted or welcome.

Music: The Album Sutorīmingu, CD, Rekōdo (ストリーミング、CD、レコード, “Streaming, CD, Record”) by Gesu no Kiwami Otome

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.

Initially brewed for the 2022 NZ Stout challenge this Imperial pastry stout has heaps of chocolate and vanilla on a sweet malt base with oats and lactose perfect for would-be Tsars…

Brewers Note

Stout – Flavored / Pastry

The “Flavored Stout” is a full-bodied black beer with a pronounced roasted flavor, often similar to coffee and dark chocolate with some malty complexity and some variations can be quite hoppy. The beer also contain a clear flavoring element. The balance can range from moderately bittersweet to bitter, with the more balanced versions having up to moderate malty richness and the bitter versions being quite dry. It also feature an harmonious marriage of the additive and beer, but still recognizable as a beer. The additive character should be evident but in balance with the beer. (For example: fruits, spices, herbs, vegetables, coffee, honey, chocolate, maple sirup, chilies, nuts, vanilla, liquor – BUT not including Smoked malt, barrel-aging or a Sour element resulting from the brewing process). In the case of over-the-top, highly sweet, adjunct-heavy stouts reminiscent of a liquid version of cake or pastry, the name “Dessert Stout” or “Pastry Stout” if often used.