Portsmouth Brewery Plans Special Royal Impy Stout Release

The Portsmouth Brewery will hold a special event on Monday as part of Portsmouth Beer Week to celebrate the release of its Royal Impy Stout beer.

For years, the Portsmouth Brewery hosted an event each March to mark the release of Kate the Great, the famed Russian imperial stout that raised the brewery's profile among craft beer lovers around the world.

But when head brewer Tod Mott left the brewery in the summer of 2012, taking the recipe for Kate the Great with him, the Portsmouth Brewery chose not to have a big March release event in 2013.

With Mott gone, the Portsmouth Brewery didn't have an imperial stout in its lineup, so new head brewer Tyler Jones formulated his own, which he called Royal Impy Stout. This is actually the second year it's been brewed, but last year it was released with little fanfare.

Portsmouth Brewery spokesman JT Thompson said they're not looking to recreate the Kate the Great phenomenon.

"The hoopla and release shindig surrounding Kate isn't something that we manufactured, nor could we have if we wanted to; it happened organically," he said. "We are doing a special bottling of Royal Impy Stout that is bigger than what we typically bottle, putting the beer on tap and seeing what happens."

If you'd like to try the Royal Impy Stout, stop by the Portsmouth Brewery on Monday, March 3. The imperial stout will be on tap when the doors open at 11:30 a.m. Bottles of the beer will also be for sale for $10, with an eight bottle limit. Only 93 gallons are being bottled, so be sure to get there early if you want to be sure to get some.