Bottle @ home from the beershop. Dark brown/black colour, beige foam. Nose of cocoa, roasted malts, maple and vanilla. Enough bitterness to counter the sweetness. Not bad.

330 ml. bottle. Purchased @ ALBO. Mixture of a Quad and RIS with cacao nibs, vanilla, maple syrup, hazelnut listed an bourbon listed as an ingredient. Sold at quite high price point for a local brewery in my opinion almost the same as Founders KBS at the store. Bourbon is listed as an ingredient and not as barrel aged so presumably just added to it. Going from the ingredient list this is different from the base sold on draft but label lacks a very clear description. Looks proper black with a mocha head that doesn’t fully last sadly. Nose carries some sharp alcohol and warming vanilla spirit in bourbon fashion, faint liquorice, mocha, syrup, dark fruit, sharp in low plastic booze way pleasant overall. Base has some BE qualities with heavy dark fruits, figs and red grape, it has clear Belgian qualities with low sourness, vanilla, mocha and little bourbon left, coffee sour, low plastic lingering alcohol. Overall it is a pleasant beer but not a proper stout and the low sour qualities take it clearly down, I think the BE elements would have worked better without that. It makes it feel a bit thinner and higher carbonated, fair on its own, over time I started getting some vanilla. This is above average for the brewery but I always felt like adding BE elements, yeast etc. to foreign styles rarely works optimally. This beer is optimal to this breweries potential but at this price point it is a too steep buy and it won’t make a dent internationally or in an increasingly international beer scene.

Huge tan-cream head, dense, over jet-black beer. Stout-burnt nose, slighly ashy, old brown bread, bit diary. Burnt, roasted, stout-acidity but mildly so; some sweetness lurking beneath. Beer was given as Auchentoshan Barrel aged, but there's nowt to find in the flavour. Alcoholheat, dry-ish, viscous-chewy. Very heavy one, in all aspects; one to sip carefully. The Plankton proved way more pleasing. Kameraad, zijn dat nu nog namen??? En kan je de tekst op het label alsjeblieft NOG wat kleiner laten drukken, dan ben ik niet meer de enige die er niets kan van lezen.