Brouwerij De Molen, Tsarina Esra, This Beer Is Better Than Esra (groan)

Here’s a strange, rare gem that I initially sought out to see what Molen has up their sleeve and ended up getting it for free. I guess that’s the cars you’re dealt in the beer world. So a whopping 180ml bottle, I really should have shared this beast with a bunch of friends right? PSYCHE.

Is it a tiny bottle or a HUGE GLASS? Optical ALEUSIONS.

Brouwrij De Molen, Tsarina Esra, 11% abv imperial porter

A: This looks as one would expect an imperial stout to look like, EXCEPT IT IS AN IMPERIAL PORTER. This has nice mocha foamy bubbles with mild carbonation. The shine is a deep blackness with a watery character that reminds me of Narke offerings. Maybe it’s just the small bottle, maybe I just have large bottle envy. That’s probably it.

Whenever a beer smells incredible, I always prepare myself for a let down on the old tastebuds. I deal with it.

S: This is easily my favorite part of this beer. There is a deep vanilla scone, cinnamon, nice peat backend and some barrel notes that have a Werther’s original sort of finish to them. I am guessing that is the whiskey aspect that is working so well with the light body on this one. This little bottle packs a huge aroma, particularly for the gentle carbonation. It reminds me of that sub that initially seems all bad ass because he sits in a chair BACKWARDS and addresses students with clever nicknames, but then you realize that he is just a liberal arts douche that has read A Separate Peace a billion times.

T: The taste is a bit of a let down given how much of a malt chub was worked up in the aroma. The taste has a ton of coffee ground flavor, tons of roasted malt, a big dryness, espresso notes and an intense bitterness that is coming from the challenger and saaz hops. A bit too hoppy and herbal in the finish for my sweet tooth. I am trying to get diabetes here and work on my mantits, not open a greenhouse.

The smell was so good, but then the actual taste of the beer just continued to trick the shit out of me.

M: The mouthfeel is slick and doesn’t present a huge coating initially but then the hops come through slapping people in the junk, making misogynistic comments and drying the place out. You go to a club and it’s a fun sweet time and then Italian hops show up, all oily, making the entire place bitter. The carbonation just starts breaking up greens and chills out without really getting up in the mix, which if maybe it decided to strap up, the coffee and hops wouldn’t be mashing on your bottle so hard when you explicitly told carbonation, ONLY CHICKS AT THE TABLE NO HOPS.

D: This is a moderately drinkable imperial porter and the tiny bottle was just right to hit my honey spot. I didn’t really need much more of this so I guess the limited run and the huge coffee dryness make this a level 2 alcoholics drink, not the crazy dangerous drinkability of stouts like Class V, or the huge firepower of Birth of Tragedy, but just enough you broaden your horizons like a stout/porter with its nipples pierced.

What a cruel sentence to deal with, awesome smells then hoppy, peaty whiskeyville. After 8oz they let me out for good behavior.

Narrative: Eudoxia Lopukhina walked the chilling streets of Kiev. Despite the government controlled media reporting a balmy spring, the oppressed masses knew better. This was 2065 and the citizens had seen too many years of rule by Svedka cyborg overlords to place hope or credence in a future that holds any shred of wistful optimism for better days. The streets that once thrived with culture now were overrun by terse, irascible robots that cared little for approval poll ratings. One babushka was seen eating a chocolate bar in the streets when a cold irridum grip snatched the rare treat and ground it into the cobblestones of Polonium Square. There were brighter days of bourbon, chocolate, and coffeehouses where the locals would slap one another on the backs and discuss proto-Pushkin, the 2.0 andronoscribe that seamlessly assembled prose in Cyrillic script. Ever since the discovery of the seemingly limitless power source, hoponium oil, the drones could oversee the people and work them mercilessly into the earth. Classic neo-revisionist Russian comic, Vladimir Nyetchtokov commented “yes, it was traditional Russian joke for to make parallel structuring and then reference the homeland but, the robots found this to be too wordy. Now Russian jokes are just terse declarative statements. Here, I show you newest Russian zinger: the stones are hard due to composition. That is it. Is best Russian joke in circulation.” The coffee days were long gone, and the days of hateful whiskeybots ruled the Asian continent with relentless tenacity.


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