Wired on 8-Wired's iStout

At my age (and in this occupation) it's not often I'm surprised by things.
After a while, all the weird and wonderful creatures who make up the daily news can become commonplace, and sport often edges towards predictability (until the Black Caps shock everyone by winning a cricket match that matters).
And beer ... well, thanks to a week in Belgium a few years ago I thought I'd tried the most interesting styles.
Somehow Imperial Stout had slipped under the tasting radar. Imperial Stouts are often referred to as Russian Imperial Stouts and I'll confess that my one-time limited beer mind believed these were made in Russia. Part of me thought ``What do Russians know about beer?''
I don't mind admitting I was wrong. Completely. Imperial Stouts were born of an 18th century trade deal between Britain and Russia. English breweries made stouts for consumption in Russia and, because the journey was so long, they had to tinker with the style to make sure it reached  its destination in the best condition.
So an ordinary stout was supercharged.  It had a higher level of fermentable sugars which meant the beer would keep fermenting as it travelled. And it was also highly hopped. Ordinarily, stouts are not big on hops but hops have preservative qualities, so adding them made it more likely the stout would survive the long journey without going off.
The result was a pretty extreme brew  full-bodied, highly alcoholic, as black as coal but with a fruity, hoppy flavour.
My road to Damascus moment with Imperial Stout came from a bottle of 8-Wired Brewing's iStout.
At the first sip I was so astonished by the complex dance of flavours that I put down the glass and said aloud, to no one: ``That is the most amazing and surprising thing I've drunk.''
I simply wasn't prepared for the sweet chocolate and coffee flavours overlaid with an almost summery freshness of hops and an underlying 10% alcohol. This beer is like alcohol-soaked grapefruit coated in chocolate and infused with coffee before being bathed in stickly sweet malt.
Marlborough-based 8-Wired is one of the many newcomers to craft brewing who do not own their equipment. Instead they are contract brewers, renting equipment off Renaissance Brewing in Blenheim to produce their  brews, which are crafted by Soren Eriksen, a Dane who is a brewer at Renaissance.
The only minor quibble I have about iStout is the exhortation on the label to put a scoop of vanilla icecream into a  glass of iStout.
I tried it. It wasn't bad. A kind of alcoholic version of the old spider drinks we used to have as kids when you mix icecream and Coke.
You could try it for a laugh but it's not the best possible use of this wonderful drop.
For more info go to 8-wired.co.nz