BABel'S
Hyouko Yashiki No Mori Brewery (Swan Lake) in Agano, Niigata, Japan 🇯🇵
Stout - Imperial Special|
Score
7.22
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Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 6.5
On tap at Popeye, pours black with a small beige head. Aroma brings out harsh wood, perfumey bourbon, and harsh roast. Flavour is harsh and perfumey, with harsh roast, perfumey bourbon, and some wood. The barrels seems very harsh here, and/or the base beer seems rather rough. Tough one to drink. Needs some work.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8
Bottle. Thanks Wada-san. Aroma is marker pen, roast, bourbon. Taste is smooth creamy and sweet. Just a hint of the whisky. Chocolate. Maybe a touch thin bodied. Bit of heat. Booze. Nice. Alternate sips go from booze to loveliness. Would have preferred more loveliness.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8
Bottle @ home, presumably from an IP trade with TimE, I can't recall. Black color. Light brown head with some retention. Aroma's: wood, red fruit, light sour, roasted. Retronasal it's sweetish, chocolate, light booze/alcohol, light sour, a bit raisins, wood/tannine/vanilla. Flavor is moderate sweet, roasted, light moderate bitter, a bit alcohol. Finishes with roasted bitterness. I liked the regular RIS better, but this is still pretty good.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 5 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 6
Thanks TimE for the bottle! Poured into a shaker showing pitch black with sparse latte foam around the rims. The nose shows Belgian yeast sweetness with a strong roast malt and coffee background. The palate is full bodied and moderately carbonated. Immediately shows a Belgian sweetness with light flavors of coffee. Lightly hoppy bitterness that seems to come out of nowhere and quite inharmonious.
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8
Bottle shared. Thanks Neil! Dark chocolate and molasses on the nose with vanilla. A bit thin-bodied. More vanilla and cacao on the palate. Creamy vanilla. Hot bourbon on the finish, but as it warms the bourbon mellow. Milk chocolate and cacao nib on the finish. --- Beer merged from original tick of BABel'S on 11 Sep 2016 at 21:01 - Score: 8
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7
Maybe the name on RB should be edited to include the fact it is an Imperial Stout?
On tap at Molto. This is a 10% imperial stout made to celebrate Swan Lake’s 19th Anniversary made with chocolate and roast malts as well as belgian yeast. Inky black with a rich malty aroma That features a sharp booziness as well as oak and bourbon notes. Not as full bodied as other Swan Lake Imperial stouts as it has a much dryer finish which contrasts to the syrupy texture of their other high ABV black beers. The taste is really nice, oak, maple, molasses, vanilla, bourbon, abit of sweet spiciness. Probably easier to knock back than their thicker stouts so it matches the hot weather now better. Worth seeking out.
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8.5
Pitch black color. Light brown head. Massive vanilla, oak and coconut nose, with dark fruit and some chocolate in the background. Never smelt so much coconut in a BA Imp Stout. So much coconut and vanilla notes, very light body, unbelievable for 10%, lots of dark fruit and bitter chocolate underneath the bourbon. So smooth and rich. Could use a bit more body, but otherwise this shit rocks. The oak, vanilla and coconut just linger forever. Wonderful.