Moa Imperial Stout

Moa Imperial Stout has an impressive bottle.  Damn thing has a champaigne cork for some reason, and black on dark brown labelling with bright yellow accents.  Like Dexter to a killer, once I saw this guy, I had to have him.  The look caught my eye, and the details sealed the deal.  This is from a New Zealand brewery, Moa Brewing Co., and is aged in pinot noir barrels.  It is bottle fermented and conditioned, so I assume the barrel aging happens first.  Or maybe they are just stuffing the full bottles into barrels.  Oh, also the bottle has an embossed emu on the neck.  Drink the bird!!

So, let's start with the dirty details: Moa Imperial Stout, from the Moa Brewing Company, LTD., Marlborough, New Zealand. 12oz, 10.2 ABV, very dark brown, not much head to speak of (which makes the champaine cork pretty pointless).

The label brags about a few Asian and Australian medals, and it certainly looks like a winner.  Looks were clearly a priority with this bottle.  New Zealand must have some well lit drinking holes, though, because with anything less than bright lights, this beer looks like it is called "Imperial Stout" and won some awards.  A different aproach, but different can be good.

I pull the cork, I pour a glass, and I take a sip.  The expectations for an imperial stout are for something thick, rich, malty, boozy, and a little metallic at the end.  Moa checks all those boxes right off the bat, in all the best ways.  There is another layer, of course.  The label says it right up front, pinot noir barrels.  It is there, in the beer, waiting patiently for me.  I'm going to change my relationship status on facebook to "complicated".  So, I pour a second glass and put on my tasting face.  It smells a bit like pennies in soy sauce, just a bit, with vapors of alcohol, yeast, and carbonation.  The first taste is thickness, then a wave of acidity, malt, yeast, sweet and bitter all in a row, finally lingering on the soft palate and dissipating on the back of the tongue.  Oz Clarke says to taste hops in beer on the burp, but he posesses senses vastly beyond mine (I wonder what I have been missing out on).  When I give this a burp taste, I just remember lunch.  A stout rarely talks about it's hops much anyway.  Maybe silence is Golden (get it?).  I tried a sip from a bottle of pinot noir I haven't yet finished, and, sadly, I don't taste it.  I get the wine barrel tones, more subtle and sweet than whiskey barrels or the like.  All the same, I would never be able to Sherlock my way backwards from a sip to the pinot.  I enjoy this beer more as an imperial stout than as a wine barrel aged imperial stout.

Moa makes a pretty fine stout, from the first look to the last sip, a real pleasure.  If you come across a bottle, drink it.  It is familiar and a bit surprising, but mostly it is tasty.  I don't know about beer culture in New Zealand (tiny hobbit pubs, I hope), but, if this is any indication, NZ must be a great place to get sloshed.