It’s been an atypical March in Minnesota. Winter here is supposed to be a bleak, frigid epoch. The locals pride themselves on surviving through it, but the 2024 season has not measured up to the apocalyptic standard. Through the snowless 60-degree days, however, one boreal harbinger has remained intact: the Russian imperial stout.
Rich and complex, Russian imperial stouts are differentiated from other dark beers by both strength and apocrypha. According to Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) guidelines, Russian imperials should be high in ABV (8–12 percent, well-hopped (50–90 IBU), and “very dark reddish-brown to jet black.” According to a poorly cited legend, the beer was beloved by former Russian tsar Peter the Great, who first encountered it during a 1698 trip to England.
Whatever the truth of the style, Russian imperial stout became eminently popular in England and, yes, Russia, before American craft brewers began brewing their own takes on the legend. Old Rasputin, from Fort Bragg, Calif., brewery North Coast Brewing Company, is considered to be the exemplar American take on the style, but there is no locale worldwide that treasures Russian imperial stout like Minnesota.
Breweries in the Land of 10,000 Lakes like Lift Bridge Brewing, Bad Weather Brewing, and Surly Brewing rewrite Russian imperial stout’s history every year, releasing scads of these big-bodied, boozy, oversweet beers as soon as conditions turn tundra-like. Here, Russian imperial stout is cherished, shared as a resolve-strengthening show of solidarity, and hailed by the local “Star Tribune” as the “the king
