Empress Catherine

Fulfilling the Imperial Order for Greatness™

A dark opaque stout with sweet aromas of molasses and black currants. Rich flavors of dark chocolate and heavy roast provide a malty balance to the pronounced bitterness in the finish.

  • Russian Imperial Stout

  • ABV: 8.0%
  • IBU: 55
  • ABW: 0%
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Origin Story

Many years ago, before Short's Brewing Company even existed, Joe Short was a nomadic up and coming brewer looking to find his place in the craft beer world. After some earlier stints at breweries where he learned the basics of packaging, cellaring, and eventually brewing on large commercial brew systems, Joe landed a job at Jackson Brewing Company as their head brewer (age 22). Aside from some of the great brews that the young Mr. Short was developing during his time at Jackson, the brewery on a whole was faltering. Eventually getting bought out, remodeled, and given a new name of "Zigg's Kettle and Brew". Regardless of the new look, mismanagement ultimately lead to the demise of this location being a brewery, thankfully, Joe Short had already moved on to open his own establishment. His time at Jackson Brewery/Zigg's was not a complete waste and in fact was where Joe had the creative freedom to start developing early versions of recipes that would eventually become some of Short's Brewing Company's best know beers (Huma Lupa Licious and Autumn Ale). Out of these early Joe Short beer recipes was an Imperial Stout unlike any other he had created before. Looking back, Joe has even said that this stout was the best beer he had ever created during his early brewing career! He would sometimes talk to Tony about it with a fondness that left us wondering why we never recreated it at Short's. Now, with many more brewing years and dozens of beer recipes under his belt, and the opportunity to add some new stout creations to our annual fall release, Joe dug deep into his archives to see if he could piece together the original recipe for this fabled stout from years ago. Getting about 6 different recipes handed to him, that may or may not have been the exact version of Zigg's Kettle and Brew's Empress Catherine: Imperial Stout, Tony pieced together a recipe that seemed indicative of a beer that could have captured Joe's affections during those early brewing years. Perhaps one of the greatest thing to come from searching through the archives to rediscover this stout from the past, aside from the enjoyable drinking experience, is the original "mock" bottle label for this beer. Fairly minimal and straight forward, with very little wording except for some clear concise directions from Joe stating "drink this beer at 55 degrees". With that, I leave you with Joe's instructions on how to order a stout at the pub: "Order two beers! One that can be consumed immediately at the cold temperature it was dispensed at, and the other being your stout of preference. That way, when you are finished with your first beer, your stout will be ready for consumption at it's ideal serving temperature, allowing you to truly enjoy the depth of flavors within." - Joe Short

Hops

Nugget, US Golding, Styrian Golding, Cascade

Nutritional Information

  • Carbs: 22.5
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