Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout

Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout

Narwhal Imperial Stout is the latest beer in Sierra Nevada’s High Altitude Series. This malt-forward monster is bold – with notes of baker’s cocoa, molasses, and dark roasted coffee. This massive imperial stout is incredibly complex, rich, and intense and will develop in the bottle for years to come.

Style: Imperial Stout
Hops: Magnum, Challenger
Malts: Two-row Pale, Caramelized malts, Chocolate, Carafa III, Honey, Roasted Barley
24.2°

Availability: 12 oz bottles, Draft
Arrival: October, 2012
3.9
1616 reviews
Chico, United States

Community reviews

4.0 2021 In aroma and taste, excellent balance, coffee, bitter chocolate, roasted notes (smoked) of black bread and a hint of fruit, good bitterness. This is an excellent example of balance and harmony in RIS
4.0 Opaque black color with tanned head. Aroma has roasted malt, sweet fruits, fudges and some spices. Taste is malty sweet with long sweet aftertaste. Flavors of caramel, fudges, vanilla, roasted malt and chocolate.
3.8 Dirty dark wood. Sparse brown head. Aroma intensity 4/5. Coffee, toast and malt aroma, notes of roasted prunes. Heavy bitter, very light sweet. Full body
4.5 Pours a dense, midnight black with a tan crown of foam head. Aromatic notes of coffee beans, brown sugar, toffee. Espresso, molasses and caramel. Palate is rich and thick. Huge flavors of lush roasted malts, more brown sugar and coffee. Thick, dense and creamy mouth. Luxurious layers of dark chocolate, cocoa, and caramel envelope the taste buds and wash over the palate like a tidal wave. A great choice for a dessert beer. Also pairs well with red meat. With each sip, bold and bittersweet flavors are at the forefront. Thankfully, this beer is able to balance all of its syrupy sweetness with plenty of roasted, bittersweet malt notes. Always remaining perfectly balanced and never being overtaken by cloying sugars. There’s plenty of both characteristics here to love, and thankfully they are separated in such a way that you can taste both independently of one another (sweet & bitter). At 10.2%, this is a highly potent imperial stout and one which manages to be shockingly drinkable. The alcohol content is extremely well camouflaged and that is appreciated. All in all, this is a commendable offering from Sierra Nevada; a true delicacy of an imperial stout. Up there with any Russian imperial that you like, this is one of the best on the market. Unassuming, perfectly blended, utterly thirst-quenching… Narwhal hits a home run.
3.9 Svart. Lavt tett lysebrunt skum. Lett sjokoladearoma. Silkemyk munnfølelse. Smaken røstet malt, lakris & nøtter. Avslutning: Kakao, kaffe & litt bitterhet. Av de bedre.
3.9 Sort, 5 mm beige skum som svinder. Aroma er mørk malt, lidt kaffe kakao, fin. Smagen er fyldig, mørk, kaffe, god rund, fylde.
4.6 0.355l bottle, 2021. Thick full black colour with long lasting but quickly shrinking brown head. Aroma: Blackberry, roasted coffee beans, cocoa, with notes of lactose and earthy tones. Elegant but not harsh. This is the trick because the...Taste: Oh my, the taste explodes in my mouth. Very elegantly sweet malty start, forest fruits, gently sourish, grainy tones with an espresso-like bitter mouthfeel. Amazingly balanced and the high alcohol isn't noticeable at all. Full body with medium carbonation. Long lasting pleasent bitter and earthy finish. It is just a perfect imperial stout without any surprises but this is the way.
3.4 From a 16 oz can into a stem glass. Ooh mommy ... if I'm reading this right this can is from 4/14/21. Glad these impy stouts age better than my beloved IPAs!! Also I'm semi-amazed I've not rated this before. In a nutshell this is a decent imperial stout ... a touch of chocolate & dark roasted malts is fine, but, as Joris picked out ... some solvent, alcohol and fennel doesn't make for a fine stout. Nevertheless, a fresher can may have smoothed out some of the difficult notes ... or not!
3.7 I 2020 Ed /I Cream-tan head over viscous black beer. Pastry, with fennel & cardamom, vanilla, felt, wood. And quite a bit of chocolate. Solvent, (ply)wood, dry wood, cardamom. Then chocolate (black), and light touches of tobacco; felt and musk. Full bodied, viscous, thick, alcoholheat. Sierra Nevada - seems always good, without ever being the best.
3.8 So interesting story, no, scratch that, boring story. I've spent years looking for this and when I finally managed to find it at Publix, I almost didn't buy it. For one I was kinda low on cash and we were buying up food for Thanksgiving, but also I've lost interest in Imperial stouts over the years. Heck I've lost interest in most high grav beers, I just want to have some easy drinking stuff these days, no need for big and chewy. But my wife actually over rode me and made me buy it. So that was nice. Turns out I still liked it quite a bit, and its entirely because of how SN always manages to stick to the rules and follow a good play book in their recipe design. This is entirely right in the wheelhouse of the classic impy. Its big and heavy and dark, but also incredibly balanced with a nice mouthfeel that makes it surprisingly drinkable. Sure its got a lot of chooclate, coffee, roast. It has a full but soft almost creamy, maybe oily body, not especially acrid like some can be. I drank 5 of the 6 over the span of 5 days, and never once felt "blah this is too much beer in one glass". Though on the last day I tried to drink 2 at once and didn't finish the 2nd bottle. That's one strike and recalls my fatigue with the high grav beers. When I wanna drink, I want to *Drink*. So in a way, its almost the perfect imperial stout, and if I were rating to style I would approach a 5.0 here, but on the hedonic scale, I have to max it somewhere in the upper 3.0s. I sure wish the RB top 50 would begin to reflect the beauty of drinkability but that's just me thinking I know more than everyone else.
4.2 LCI. Uit de fles geschonken. Prima imp stout met een ietwat rokerige smaak, samen met chocola en liquorice, beetje koffie. mooie bittere afdronk.
2.9 Not my favorite
4.4 Used motor oil opaque pour. Sweet java/cocoa aroma with brown sugar, molasses and blueberry pastry. Mellow coffee oak flavor with bitter chocolate finish. Texture is oily, carbonation is low. Great
4.3 Bottle from Cascade Club This is a fantastic example of a traditional, i.e. adjunct free, imperial Stout. There’s a great depth of malty goodness here. Dark, dark chocolate cake, hints of rum raisin, cinder toffee. The body is full and each sip leaves a delicious sticky coating. Impressive.
4.4 Imperial stout by this famed and highly influential craft beer pioneer; launched in 2012, but from a brewery with roots in the eighties I expect old school style throughout. Thick and dense but quickly thinning and eventually dissolving, membrane-lacing, mocha-beige head on a jet black beer – so far so good. Aroma of melting ‘fondant’ chocolate, espresso, burnt blackcurrants, dried blueberries, sweet pipe tobacco, toasted walnut, dry leather, brown bread crust, peppercorns, dried grapefruit peel, whisky, blood-like iron faraway in the background. Dried-fruity onset, fig, old raisins, restrainedly sweetish with a very light black olive-like umami touch somewhere, full and deep from the start with that typical roasty sourishness running underneath, medium carbonation, full oily body. Caramelly malt core under additional layers of bitter black chocolate, toasted walnuts and eventually black coffee, with leathery and blood-like aspects on the sides; generally more bitter than sweet, an overall impression reinforced by old school dry citrus pith- and peppercorn-like hop bitterness joining the coffeeish roasted bitterness in the finish. Warming, whisky-like alcohol in the end too, but largely absorbed by those masses of malt, with a roasted bitterness lingering on for a long time. It seems I got what I was hoping for, and I’ll take this kind of old-fashioned, almost ‘English’ style imperial stouts – with a classic American twist of course – over all those pastry stouts anytime. After this one, I felt satisfied and comforted that this kind of late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first century brewing style still exists.
4.4 Robe noire foncée avec une mousse crémeuse et persistante Nez caramel, pruneaux et kirsch. Première gorgée qui réchauffe et qui fait la part belle au pruneau, au kirsch et à la cerise griotte. La fin de bouche donne sur le caramel, des touches torréfiées et poivrées. On note des accents de café légers qui se font très discret tout au long de la dégustation. L'ensemble est indéniablement bien fait, imposant, fin en bouche, puissant avec une finale sèche et une amertume marquée, racée avec quelques notes de réglisse et des fruits secs. Je reprocherai toutefois une trop forte présente de l'alcool en bouche qui empêche une dégustation sereine, on est sur une dégustation mouvementée, qui oscille entre la finesse de l'ensemble et la force de l'alcool aux accents d'eau de vie qui rappelle que la bougresse fait tout de même 10,2° et que cette belle américaine a un fort caractère et ne se laisse pas dompter si facilement ! Une belle découverte, comme toujours : une très bonne imperial stout de nos confrères Sierra Nevada qui ont le mérite de toujours proposer de beaux nectars aux saveurs complexes.
4.2 A bit nutty and whisky flavour.roasty,coffee.smoky.world class. Canned:12/11/2020
3.7 37.5cl Fles van Bierwinkel Alkmaar. 2020 versie. Zwart, beige kraag. Zoet, drop, geroosterde mout, stroop, wat pure chocolade, donker fruit, bittere finish. Medium tot volle body. Lekker maar niet de topper waar ik op gehoopt had.
3.8 35,5cl bottle (2020) from Sip, Tallinn. Pours pitch black with a dissipating, beige head. Roasty aroma with dark dried fruits, cocoa, mild coffee notes and hint of herbal hops. Smooth, sweet and flavourful with a solid, but balanced bitterness. Certainly enjoyable.
4.0 Mooie zwarte kleur met een goede kraag. Ruikt vol, koffie, vanille. Smaakt vol koffie, bitterzoet.
3.4 Bottle of 33cl.pours pitchblack, no bubble. Aroma of coffee and chocolate Alcoholic feel
3.7 Backlog March 2019. Black body under a dense brown head. Aroma of dark malt and coffee. Taste is sweet, roasted malt, coffee and fine bitterness. Fine body and long lasting pleasant aftertaste. Nice one.
4.4 Fles 35,5cl thuis. Bitter, koffie, roasted malts, zoeten, cacao, melasse, wat houttonen, licht boozy, licht syrup, hint van vanille, wat liquorice, vrij droog, beetje as. (5-4-2021).
4.3 Bottle 0,35 ltr: Opaque black coloured brew with an excellent dry bitter taste with hints of roasted malts, dark chocolate, coffee and a bit of burning alcohol.
4.2 Bottle. Pours dark brown/black with light head. Aroma is roast, coffee, smoke, whisky, wood, oak, some cocoa, dark chocolate. Taste is smoke, whisky, coffee, oak, wooden chips, tart, some cigar, dark chocolate, coal. Superb beer!
4.1 Bottle 35,5 cl, poured into a tulip glass. Pours pitch black with a small and fading tan head and an aroma of Bourbon, maple syrup, cocoa, coffee, roasted malts, toffe and honey. The taste is low sweet and heavy bitter and complex grainy with a long, complex bitter and grainy finish. Very nice!!!
3.6 Wieder mal ein Bierchen aus der Brauerei Sierra Nevada, eine der ersten großen Craftbier-Brauerei aus Amerika. Es wird auf dem Etikett auf den namensgebenden Narwal eingegangen, aber nicht warum dieses Bier seinen Namen trägt. Man könnte interpretieren, dass die schwarzen Tiefen der Arktis, wo sich dieses Tier aufhält, der Schwärze dieses Biers entspricht. Etwas schwierig ist für Europäer die 12 Unzen-Flasche, das ca 0,354882 l entspricht... Geschmacklich ist es klassisch bitterschokoladig und ordentlich trocken. Nichts einfaches oder leichtes, aber aufgrund der tiefen Aromen wirklich gut gelungen und interessant zu trinken. Es hat mir wirklich gut gefallen.
4.0 Volle, krachtige imperial stout. Rijke koffiesmaak en chocoladebasis. Hoorde balans tussen zoet en bitter. Fijn mondgevoel. Goed.
4.1 2017 version, cellared for 3.5 years. Dried fruit nose. Syrupy consistency. Wonderfully mellowed, with mollasses aplenty.
4.3 Thuis uit een flesje. Zwarte kleur. Stevig bruin schuim, mooi. Geroosterde mout, chocolade en wat koffie in het aroma. Smaak koffie, bittere toets. Volle smaak.