The larger, more restrained British counterpart to American Imperial Stout — deep roasted malt, dark chocolate, and dried-fruit complexity, with firm bitterness and an earthy, English-hop character rather than aggressive American hopping. Typically 7.0–12.0% ABV. These are beers built for long cellar aging.
In the glass
Origin
Imperial stout originated in the London porter-brewing trade of the late 18th century, when the major London porter houses brewed an ‘extra stout’ porter for export to the Baltic countries and Russia. The style picked up its imperial nickname because it supplied the Russian imperial court of Catherine the Great; the artist Joseph Farington recorded drinking one in his diary in 1796, noting that it was ‘specially brewed for the Empress of Russia.’ Thrale’s Anchor Brewery in Southwark — purchased by Robert Barclay and John Perkins in 1781 and renamed Barclay Perkins — became the definitive London brewer of the style. A Barclay Perkins Russian imperial stout recipe from 1856 reached an original gravity of 1.107 (comfortably over 10% ABV) with more than ten pounds of hops per UK barrel.
Other London brewers followed. Reid of the Griffin Brewery in Camden brewed only stout and porter until 1877, with a regular XX Imperial at around OG 1.080 and a special Russian-export stout at OG 1.100 observed by brewery chronicler Alfred Barnard on an 1889 visit. Outside London, Brain’s Brewery in the Welsh coal port of Cardiff sold ‘Little Imp’ imperial stout before the First World War. Much of the export trade, however, ran through middlemen rather than breweries — most notably the Belgian-born London beer merchant Albert Le Coq, who built up a substantial Russian trade under his own name; in 1974 Norwegian divers recovered bottles of his imperial Extra Double Stout from the 1869 wreck of the Olivia in the Baltic. Le Coq eventually bought a brewery in Tartu, Estonia, in 1910, which was nationalized by the USSR in 1940.
Most British brewers withdrew from the Russian market before the First World War, but Baltic brewers kept the tradition alive. Finland’s Sinebrychoff, founded by a Russian in 1819, revived its intensely bitter Koff porter at 7.2% ABV in 1952. Polish brewers Okocim and Zywiec retained strong porters as well, though often re-fermented with lager yeast. In Britain, Barclay Perkins alone kept the imperial stout flag flying, with the focus shifting from export to a domestic winter beer aged in bottle for a year or more; vintage-labeled bottles began with the 1949 batch. After Barclay Perkins merged with Courage in 1955, production moved to Courage’s Tower Bridge brewery and then, when that plant closed in 1982, to John Smith’s of Tadcaster in Yorkshire. Courage Imperial Stout appeared only sporadically thereafter, with the last batch in 1993.
The style’s modern revival was driven from the United States. In the early 1980s, Seattle importer Charles Finkel’s Merchant du Vin commissioned Samuel Smith of Tadcaster — John Smith’s family rival — to brew an imperial stout at 7% ABV for export to America, and this example helped seed American craft-brewer interest in the style. Le Coq’s name was resurrected in 1999 when American importer Matthias Neidhart commissioned Harvey’s Brewery in Lewes, England, to brew an imperial Extra Double Stout at 9% ABV under a facsimile of the original corked-bottle label. Imperial stout has since returned to the Baltic as a craft-brewer winter specialty, and in the United States it has become one of the most popular strong-beer categories.
Notes
British-style imperial stout leans on English hop character (earthy, spicy, floral) and on long bottle conditioning, which develops leather, sherry, and light Brett-like complexity in well-kept examples. The 2026 Brewers Association guidelines separate British-Style Imperial Stout from American-Style Imperial Stout (the hoppier, more assertive American counterpart); the 2021 Beer Judge Certification Program guidelines cover both traditions under a single 20C ‘Imperial Stout’ code and instruct judges to indicate provenance on the scoresheet. Well-made examples can age for decades in the bottle.
Defining examples
Courage Russian Imperial Stout·Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout·Harvey’s Imperial Extra Double Stout·Thornbridge Saint Petersburg·Park Brewery Spankers