B.O.R.I.S THE CRUSHER
by Brad
With a name like that, I couldn't resist the title. Before I even get started on this beer, a little background. This is another one I made several weeks ago and are just now getting around to writing it up. Luckily, this time, I wrote myself notes on the beer and on the pancakes (as I usually do). Except, in this case, my notes start off with "
Holy. Shit. Delicious."
B.O.R.I.S (Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout) the Crusher is a product of Hoppin' Frog Brewery out of Akron, OH. BORIS is a two-time Great American Beer Festival winner in the Imperial Stout category, and while I was skeptical at my first taste of it, the second go-around certainly lived up to that honor. I first ran across this beer at a sneak preview screening for Comeback, the Wisconsin Beer Movie for the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild.
Maybe it was because the beer was too cold at the time, or because it was after tasting a bunch of other beer, but my initial reaction was that the beer wasn't that great, and certainly wasn't worthy of such acclaim. (My fellow tasters concurred (which may've been part of the problem, but, meh, who knows)). Either way, when I cracked this one open to make some pancakes out of, everything was completely different.
The beer is incredibly dark and rich - almost syrupy. It clocks in at 9.4%, so it certainly packs a punch, as well. It's full-bodied and full of flavor, with notes of dark chocolate and dark fruit (fig or raisin?). It was full of malty goodness, and is probably one of the densest/thickest beers I've ever seen. I hate the analogy, but it's almost like motor oil.
The batter didn't have any particularly special/interesting taste qualities to it. It had the same dark, rich, malty goodness of the beer, but nothing special happened to it. The biggest thing is that the batter was so dark. It really looked and felt like chocolate cake batter (April Fools' joke, anyone?). The one tasting note is that, whether it's due to the alcohol content or the rich flavor, BORIS did manage to cut the yeasty flavor beer batters tend to have.
The pancakes themselves cooked up relatively flat. BORIS isn't heavily carbonated (which probably adds to the holy-crap-this-is-dense-ness), so the pancakes weren't, either. The color is probably the most startling factor. Seriously. What is that?
|
| "You're no match for Boris" |
B.O.R.I.S (Bodacious Oatmeal Russian Imperial Stout) the Crusher is a product of Hoppin' Frog Brewery out of Akron, OH. BORIS is a two-time Great American Beer Festival winner in the Imperial Stout category, and while I was skeptical at my first taste of it, the second go-around certainly lived up to that honor. I first ran across this beer at a sneak preview screening for Comeback, the Wisconsin Beer Movie for the Madison Homebrewers and Tasters Guild.
Maybe it was because the beer was too cold at the time, or because it was after tasting a bunch of other beer, but my initial reaction was that the beer wasn't that great, and certainly wasn't worthy of such acclaim. (My fellow tasters concurred (which may've been part of the problem, but, meh, who knows)). Either way, when I cracked this one open to make some pancakes out of, everything was completely different.
The beer is incredibly dark and rich - almost syrupy. It clocks in at 9.4%, so it certainly packs a punch, as well. It's full-bodied and full of flavor, with notes of dark chocolate and dark fruit (fig or raisin?). It was full of malty goodness, and is probably one of the densest/thickest beers I've ever seen. I hate the analogy, but it's almost like motor oil.
Prep/Cooking:
|
| Is that....chocolate cake? |
|
| Seriously. Doesn't look like a pancake at all. |
Results:
|
| "Boris has arrived!" |
These pancakes were amazing. I'm just gonna put that out there to start. They managed to keep almost all of the flavor of the beer, and got even richer given the batter and solid form. They even had a bit of the alcohol taste, likely due to the higher-than-average alcohol content. I don't know if they were actually still alcoholic, but man, they were good. Also, drinking a whole bomber of one of those things is rough.
The Ternary Scale:
Pancakes: 2 - possibly the best pancakes I've had in the history of this blog. I'm not sure who the competitor would be here, but these things were great-mazing.
Syrup: 0 - God, no. The sugary sweetness drove out all of the subtle tones of the beer-cakes. This is one of the few instances where I wanted a way to make the syrup go away. They ruined these pancakes.
|
| Notice how little of the beer was drank during the making of these pancakes... |
If you liked this post, share the love!