A Super Stout
Inky, highly potent Imperial or Russian stout continues as a star of craft beer culture. Whether flavoured, whiskey barrel-aged, or plain jane, its appeal has only grown since beer guru Michael Jackson virtually created imperial stout as a beer style, in 1977. Before that it was simply an almost-extinct, extra-strong form of old London porter.
Yet, in distant 1950, London brewer Barclay Perkins formed a plan to ship its Russian Imperial Stout to America. By surviving evidence, so much it seems did Yank soldiers admire it during the war (?) it was felt a market lay Stateside for the oddball beer type.
It was early days for consumer motivational research, but the brewery was clever enough to relabel the beer, “Imperial Extra Stout”, dropping the “Russian”. A heating up Cold War likely played a role here.
Further details appear from a 1950 story in the Buffalo Evening News. It reads in part:
RUSSIAN STOUT NAMED IMPERIAL FOR U. S. MARKET
Special to The Buffalo Evening News and Chicago Daily News
LONDON, April 26. — One of the popular beers in England is “Russian stout,” so-called ever since it was first brewed in 1781 for export to Russia.
In old days Russia’s aristocracy demanded a super stout and a British brewery rose to the occasion, naming the brew after its destination. From 1781 until World War I, thousands of barrels of Russian stout were shipped over every year.
But times have changed. Russia is now behind an Iron Curtain, which even Russian stout is not able to penetrate. There’s a new potential market in America, however, which the brewers hope to open up….
Barclay’s Russian Stout had been exported earlier to North America, even to more distant Victoria, British Columbia, before World War I. See the advert in this issue of the Victoria Daily Colonist in 1909. It mentions other stouts of Barclay Perkins as well.
After that war it seems Courage Imperial Russian Stout, as the beer came to be known by 1970, did not reappear in North America until the 1970s – unless, that is, some arrived in the 1950s under Barclay Perkins’ plan. Whether any did is open to question, I have seen no other evidence.
Jumping to 1977, American beer writer Michael Weiner praised the beer in his The Taster’s Guide to Beer calling it “smooth, rich, velvety [and] sweet, yet carry[ing] the bitter tang of hops”.
According to a notation by Barnes and Noble Weiner’s book was published on January 1, 1977. Hence, the 1977 year is nominal. The book was readied for print earlier, while Jackson’s book came out mid-1977. So Weiner was not influenced by Jackson in his perception. I think Jackson may have known of Weiner’s book, but it is speculation.
As beer historians know, Jackson’s book lyricised and romanticised Imperial stout, using literary flair and arcane historical research about Catherine the Great and the former Baltic export trade for British porter.
Weiner showed, at least, there was budding American interest in this exotic beer type before Jackson, when American beer was virtually all bland international lager style.*
Weiner also in the book reprinted a lengthy, admiring account of Russian stout by English wine writer Cyril Ray, originally published in Queen magazine in the 1960s. Ray likened the beer to a fine silky Burgundy, and fielded other evocative prose.
It seems possible had the Korean War not intervened, Russian Imperial Stout might have become the toast of 1950s American beer connoisseurs, might have, in other words, introduced a corner of craft beer culture 25 years before it happened.
There was, though, a brief (1950s) fashion for another British beery exotica, oyster stout – in California of all places, as discussed earlier here.
So it is useful to recall this history. Pre-craft American beer wasn’t always a desert. There was always some fine stout in (North) America, literally or in prospect. I speak here of postwar as before 1940 some worthy domestic stout was still made, and some quality British or Irish black stuff was imported, eg Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.
See this post for the sequel.
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*[Added Dec. 30, 2019]. The Great Canadian Beer Book published in 1975 in Toronto also contained an admiring notice of Courage Imperial Russian Stout, literary-style in this case. See here.