Beer Review: Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Imperial Stout

I'm a bit of a craft beer enthusiast (my wife would say beer snob), and apparently reputation is beginning to precede me. A few weeks ago, someone I've never met gave my wife a beer to bring me to try. How cool is that?

The beer was an interesting one, to be sure. It's a craft brewed imperial stout with a high alcohol content. Oh, and it comes in a 12 ounce aluminum can! I have to admit I've never seen a craft beer in a can before. That's more the realm of the mass produced domestic swill that gets advertised during the super bowl. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

The beer in question was a Ten Fidy Imperial Stout from the Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colorado. It sports a 9.5% alcohol content and 98 IBU. Oskar Blues' web site offered several compelling reasons that beer in a can is superior to that in a bottle. The reasons range from the practical (easier to transport), to the environmental (aluminum is more often recycled than glass) and the very practical (cans block light and air, keeping beer fresher longer than glass). All that's good, but how does a craft beer in a can taste?

I had the perfect opportunity to find out the other night. I was sitting around a backyard fire at a friend's house with the guys on a cool spring night. We'd just finished off a couple of pizzas. Is there a better time to drink an imperial stout?

I cracked the beer and poured it into a glass. It poured thick and creamy with a small head. It smelled malty, a little sweet, and quite appetizing.

The taste? The taste was downright delicious. The beer was smooth but flavorful, with a great balance of sweetness and maltiness. I detected notes of chocolate and coffee as the beer danced across my tongue, as well. The maltiness was balanced really well with the hop bitterness. 98 IBU is pretty high for a stout, but the beer wasn't particularly bitter. The hops seemed to balance the sweetness of the malt really well, giving you a beer that was neither overly sweet nor overly bitter.

According to the Oskar Blues web site, in addition to the 98 IBU worth of hops, this brew is made up of two-row malt, chocolate malt, roasted barley, and flaked oats. That diverse group of malt ingredients probably explains the smooth yet complex flavor of this beer.

The web site also notes this beer has won several awards, including a Gold Medal at the 2010 Beer World Championships.

I would highly recommend this beer, and I look forward to trying other beers from Oskar Blues.