Score! DV9 in Hand

Head Brewmaster Jeffray was lucky enough to score two six packs of St. Aronld's Devine Reserve #9 - Imperial Pumpkin Stout from Spec's Liquor in Beaumont. Frequent readers of this blog will recall that St. Arnold's, a local Houston brewery, periodically brews a special single batch beer. These beers usually are high in alcohol content, represent rare beer styles, and usually sell out in the first day. Below is a description of DV9 from St. Arnold's website.

Reserve No. 9	Imperial Pumpkin Stout
Cases Made:	1,500
Kegs Made:	23 ½ bbls, 20 1/6 bbl
Date Brewed:	September 21, 2009
Date Bottled:	November 11, 2009
Original Gravity:	1.101
Final Gravity:	1.020
Alcohol:	11% ABV

Description:

Important: let this beer warm to at least 50° before enjoying. This beer is black with some ruby highlights. The nose is full of pumpkin pie spices and some alcohol. There are notes of nutmeg, caraway and vanilla. The taste starts with chocolate malt with a hint of spice and rolls into a warm spicy alcohol taste which has the effect of creating the balance that usually comes from the hop bitter. There is some hop bitter on the finish, but not much. Overall, this beer finishes relatively dry for such a big beer. As it warms, the spices move forward in the taste and the chocolate moves to the finish. The pumpkin provides a pleasant undertone and a nice mouthfeel. The spices will probably fade some over time; they mellowed considerably while still in the fermenter.