Boutielle 33cl, BB 02/2018, lot# 1902. Brune foncée, col épais crémeux moka doré au verre. Arôme offre le plein de malts grillés, moka, caramel, rétro grains don le bouquet houblonné semble dissipé. Palais est légèrement amer niveau chocolaté, malt caramel, pas mal de café avec une certaine douceur en fin de bouche, le tout rappelant un peu le mélanoïde. Biscuité avec une amertume qui est à la traine par rapport à ce qui est annoncé. Amertume est brève sur la fin, légèrement fruité mais restant trop discrète, et c’est bien là son point faible.

On tap @EurHop (Rome). Pours deep brown/black with a little cappuccino head. Aroma of roasted malts, capuccino, chocolate, nice. Flavour is medium sweet with a decent bitter end, rich. Full body, light carbonation. A bit rough but ok.

Draft @ BrewDog Shepherds Bush, Shepherds Bush W12. Pours a black color with a small tan head. Has a roasted malty chocolate and licorice aroma. Roasted malty licorice and chocolate flavor. Has a roasted malty licorice and chocolate finish.

Bottle sample at a tasting at Max’s place. Thanks Stas. Black with a nice tan head. Aroma of roast, lots of soy sauce, charcoal, a bit of dark fruits. Sweetish flavor, slightly salty, slightly sourish, with roast, bitter chocolate, lots of soy sauce, nuts, a bit of charcoal notes, bitter burnt finish. Full-bodied, oily, viscous. Very nice, just a bit too much soy sauce.

Scottish RIS in collaboration with De Molen, with no less than five hop varieties. Utterly dark chestnut colour bordering on pitch black with a dense and moussy, medium sized, yellowish beige head on top. Aroma of brown bread dough, raisins, still warm chocolate cake, caramel, some subtle charcoal, beef stock and even a juicy entrecôte, café latté, damp autumn leaves, subtle anise, sweet cashew nuts, baker’s chocolate, burnt furniture, faint hints of bourbon, liquorice, overripe banana, gingerbread, marmelade, treacle, pear brandy and vanilla. Candied sweetness in the onset and quite exuberantly so, candied banana, candied orange, candied cherries, almost sugary but balanced with a deep sourish edge (perhaps the wheat), soft carbo with a fluffy, thick, fat mouthfeel, coating the mouth cavity with an oily texture; a deep, layered malt composition ensues, caramelly and slightly wheaty at first, quickly plunging into an abyss of nuts and chocolate with peppery spicy notes keeping you awake, roasted but not overly coffeeish, bittersweet, velvety, pairing well with the spicy, resiny, dried grapefruit-like, peppery, drying and quite pronounced hoppiness in the end (and of course the five varieties are indistinguishable from one another in this sea of malts), as well as a warming glow of calvados-like alcohol adding further drought; a toasted, somewhat sticky ’bittersweetness’ from the malts lingers in the throat after swallowing, but the very, very last impression is still a deep and quite potent hop bitterness in this one. This beer needs time to develop I think, also in the mouth, but it is surely a very accomplished imperial stout, sweet with sourish and bittering components and in that sense complex enough to aspire for international allure. It is clear that De Molen had a hand in this one - but honestly speaking, I prefer their own stout variations, though I must say this one makes me look forward to the grappa barrel aged and ’Bretted’ version they have announced.