Reviewed: Evil Twin Even More Jesus
Product description: A few times in the history of craft beer it has happened that a highly praised beer rises beyond mortal stardom into a higher godly league. Usually the recipe to make such heavenly drops is thick fudge-like body, pitch black color, amazingly overwhelming aromas of chocolate, coffee, dark fruits and muscovado sugar, obviously only made in limited amounts and most crucial of all – it must taste rare!
Evil Twin Brewing (brewed by Two Roads Brewing) – Even More Jesus – 16 oz. can poured into a chalice – 12% abv.
Sampled from a 16 oz can (batch 15) brewed by Evil Twin in Stratford, CT (this matters because Evil Twin beers can be from a variety of locations), Even More Jesus comes out of the can about as dark as beer can be – inky black with touches of light peeking through while pouring. Once in the snifter tulip glass, this is jet black with menacing, dark brown foam that has an impressive reverse cascade effect. Oh yeah.
Plunge in and the aroma is savory with tar and black olive switching up after a minute of oxidation to thick fudge and brownie. Yum. Keeping with the dessert theme, the taste is super sweet up front with too much burnt sugar for my liking. The body is just insanely dense with an oily, palate-coating effect. The mid-palate is nicely bitter with dark chocolate, but caramel and molasses stick around. This beer is definitely on the sweet side with continuing flavors burnt sugar, brownie, fudge, and chocolate cake frosting. It’s a much sweeter imperial stout than Port Santa’s Little Helper that I reviewed last month. But it’s just as crazy bitter in the background as Bell’s Expedition. That gives it “balance”, but the front palate is still too sweet and the back palate has to really do some magic with wet tobacco, tar, black crayon, and oil-cured black olive. On the plus side, the mouthfeel is soft and oily and there’s no room for alcohol burn with all that sugar.
Now with most sweet beers, I find that they eventually become cloying and overpowering with each successive sip. But with this beer, it becomes more bitter with each sip. The end result is quite the monster beer – huge body and huge bitterness. It’s dialed up to the max in every department: specialty malt, original gravity, alcohol, bitterness. The final verdict is that this beer is technically flawless. It’s just too sweet for me. But if you are into monster imperial stouts that need to be shared in a group, this is for you. If you are into monster imperial stouts that you want to drink all by yourself, may God help you.
In many ways, this beer seems like a parody of imperial stout. Each aspect of the style has been dialed up to the maximum to leave you with a beer that is almost too ridiculous to take seriously. Even the description pokes fun at the tendency for the “best” imperial stouts to overlap with the rarest imperial stouts like Surly Darkness and Three Floyds Dark Lord, the latter especially known for being extremely sweet for the style.
Oh, and that burnt sugar flavor I keep mentioning – Evil Twin has a better descriptor for that, Muscovado sugar, which I was not familiar with before reviewing this beer. Muscovado sugar is the darkest, most raw form of sugar available as it retains the most molasses content. That really is the driving flavor of this beer. Hey, at least you learned something today.
