Rushton Imperial Stout

I know we try to avoid puns as much as possible in our beer names, but I couldn’t resist this one! (OK, so actually there have been a few puns: Bohemian Wrenbury, Wheat Nancy, Knutsford Brown Ale, Audlem Unusual. So this one joins a long tradition of puns at Cheshire Peaks).

Anyway, for those that don’t know, Russian Imperial Stout is a beer style that takes stout to extremes – as big, rich and bold as a stout can be. They are usually about 9% ABV and highly bitter, then bottled and matured for at least a year. You may have had Courage Russian Imperial Stout – this is the classic. It’s something of an acquired taste, being so dark and roasty. I remember it being rather like drinking burnt toast.

So why now? Well we’ve just made a couple of lighter beers: An “English Pale Ale” (based on Marston’s EPA) and a southern brown ale (very malty and low bitterness, a bit like Mann’s Original Brown Ale). This has left us with a huge yeast cake, which will be ideal for fermenting such a big beer as a Russian Imperial Stout.

There’s a slight problem however. The malt bill is huge! To achieve 8.5% it requires about 9.2kg of malt. (82.7% Maris Otter, 6.5% Roast Barley, 4.3% Special B, 2.2% CaraMunich, 2.2% Chocolate, 2.2% Pale Chocolate). Way back, we made our own mash tun out of a freezer box, and we’ve found that this can hold no more than 5.5kg of grain. So we’ve borrowed our friend Andy’s larger mash tun (also a freezer box, but a commercial one from Brupaks) – this, he says, will hold up to 10kg of grain.

Talking of grain, we have neighbours that keep a few chickens down the road. We’ve tried them out with a bit of the spent grains recently, and they seem to love it. So they won’t be going hungry after Monday’s brew day.