Bison Imperial Brown Ale.

After that incredibly disappointing so-called imperial IPA, I almost wanted to give up drinking for the day. But then I remembered that I have a backlog of beers to review. So here we go with the Bison Organic Imperial Brown Ale. I realize that trying another "brown" beer could be a bad idea after trying to drink that wonky imp IPA brewed with menstrual blood, but I have faith in Bison.

The pour was a little disconcerting as it was rather still. A tiny head did develop though it didn't stick around long. Nearly opaque in color. Smell is roasty, toasty, dirty, dark chocolate so there's a nice complexity to the nose. Of course, taste is the most critical point for me. I have a history of shaming many a brown ale for not being Blackstone Nut Brown Ale. I've just come to expect that nuttiness and residual sweetness. To me, nut brown ale are simply more enjoyable to plain brown ales. As expected, there was not enough nuttiness here but also not very much sweetness, which is surprising to me. I would expect a higher final gravity here. The extra malt is present, but I still think it could have done with a bit of extra nonfermentable sugar.

I still think this is a pretty good beer though. The taste is clean and balanced, but it's just more of a cooler weather beer. Not sure what kind of food pairing I'd go with here. It's no dinner beer and pairing with a chocolate dessert is pretty cliche. ... Just tried it with a medjool date, and it wasn't that great. I'm going to go ahead and say this would probably be good with oatmeal or granola. ... Yeah, works with granola and peanut butter chips, probably more so with the peanut butter. I think part of it is getting that extra sweetness but the granola adds the extra overall body to the robust but relatively light-feeling beer.

• Appearance: Nearly opaque, dark brown. Small head with low retention.
• Smell: Dirt, chocolate, wood.
• Taste: A stronger, more assertive brown ale taste. Not terribly distinctive, but just a more intense generic brown ale taste, a little toastier.
• Mouthfeel: Carb is low but not flat. It fits well enough. A bit more cohesive than a regular brown ale but not necessarily viscous.
• Drinkability and Overall: 7%ABV so not intense as your might expect from the "imperial" in its name, but still a bit robust to sit around and drink more than one. By no means is it bad, but I guess I had too high expectations tonight.