Boulevard Brewing Company's Collaboration No. 1 Imperial Pilsner

What do you get when you combine an over-ambitious brewery in Kansas City, with an odd and difficult to pull off beer style and a Belgian brew master?

The worst of three worlds.

It pours like a standard pilsner. Doesn't look any maltier, and in no way looks like more of anything. It's a clear yellow and although the carbonation may rise fractionally slower, that's about it. Moderate white head that thins fairly quickly.

Smells like any macro. No trace of the pilsner funk I love in the style.

Tastes the same. Except here's where the Belgian comes in, because it has a residual chemical/plastic taste that many Belgians have, especially the lighter styles like wits. Light bitterness that comes out primarily in the aftertaste when the malt fades. The chemical taste gets worse as the beer gets warmer, and I mean much worse, and it tastes nothing like a pilsner by then.

After reading I Love Beer's post about this beer I decided I had to try it, despite having avoided all of the smokestack beers as over-priced and from a mediocre brewery. So it's him I'm really pissed at about this.

Alright, I guess 'pissed' is a bit strong, but I still think he owes me $10.00. Rogue makes an excellent imperial pilsner, which, like I Love Beer, I believe is an odd imperial to make. But they do it the way it should be. If you have a choice, and you do, buy Rogue's instead. Every time.

Rogue Ales Morimoto Imperial Pilsner

Imperial Pilsner? Sounds effed up. But pilsner being one of my favorite styles, I had to try it. The fact that it's from Rogue, one of the most solid breweries in the US, makes it even more of a must.

From one of Rogue's imperial series ceramic flip-top bottles, it pours a hazy, unfiltered reddish amber, with a huge cascading light tan head that stays for a long time. Good carbonation.

Smells grassy, with a very subtle sweet maltiness that comes across as a very light bread smell. Grassy. Did I mention grassy? Hugely grassy.

Grassy. I wouldn't describe the initial hit as bitter so much as I would twangy. Tart, not citrus. Hits you with tartness on the top of the tongue, then follows with an excellent bitter aftertaste. Fairly clean finish for such a big beer. Great medium to heavy body. (Burp) Grassy.

I'm a little confused. It has less of the pilsner funk than I thought it should have, but I love this beer. As big and unfiltered as it is, it's still amazingly crisp. The alcohol (more than 9%) is also completely absent, a difficult task in a lighter-style (save for the imperial), but I've had impy stouts that had more of an alcohol bite.

This is probably the only beer in the Rogue XS series that I'll come back to. They're all good, but they're also all expensive, and this is the only one that rates, in my book.