Bottle at craig’s. Pours black, nose is chocolate, coffee, toffee, taste is similar, chewy, dry, sweet, thick.

Many thanks to CH-303 for this bottle! The beer is thick, deep and black. Malt, smooth, dark roast. Long aftertaste, plums, raisins. Extremely viscous. Great and deep!

12 fl. oz bottle. Pours opaque black with a mid-sized good lasting brownish head. Aroma of dark roasted malt, intense chocolate and coffee, some wood. Taste of strong dark roasted malt, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, vanilla, warmy alcoholic finish.

Aroma: roasty, chocolate, coffee, molasses Appearance: clear black, brown head Taste: medium sweetness, medium bitterness, Palate: full body, thick feel, soft carbonation, long finish, damn, that’s excellent!

Packaging date of 08/22/14.
This was poured into a mini snifter.
The appearance was a dark brown close to black color with a less than a finger’s worth of foamy tan head that dissipated within less than about 30 seconds.
The smell had a big roasty to semi-smooth bitter coffee bean leading into a delicate cocoa and light vanilla to round it all out.
The taste was pretty smoothed due to the date, I’m guessing, still a nice roasty smooth coffee and cocoa delicately weaves together to lead to a decent sly roasty aftertaste and finish.
On the palate, this one sat about a medium on the body with a good sessionability about it. Carbonation definitely smoothed a bit with a nice drying edge leading into a rounded out stickiness over my tongue.
Overall, I can only imagine what this is like when its fresh. It aged beautifully and I hope to have again some day hopefully fresh.

One of the most classic and critically acclaimed American imperial stouts. Very dark mahogany brown colour, almost black but still transparent on the edges in the end and in that sense a bit less dark than many other imperial stouts, under a dense and creamy, cappuccino-like, tan head with good lacing and good retention; the beer itself also leaves thick, oily, yellow ’legs’, as expected. Powerful bouquet rising up from the bottle upon opening... I put my nose above the snifter and I find myself in beer heaven once again: the purest fondant chocolate, ristretto, candied dates, raisins, brown bread, some baked banana, charcoal, fine cognac with a fine cigar, something pleasantly and refinedly sourish not unlike balsamic vinegar but very subtle, bayleaf, subtle vanilla notes, mocha ice cream, fine hints of peat, fermenting soy sauce, pine wood, even something flowery and a very refined and subtle sweetness reminiscent of tawny port. Pointy, ’aristocratic’ taste, with a noble, restrained candied sweetness in the onset, very light sourish, salty and umami accents all working perfectly well together, oily and supple mouthfeel, not too sticky as is often the case in this style, soft carbonation exactly as it should be, with prickly little ’stings’ to the tongue, providing perfect balance with a powerful, profound yet still relatively ’light’ and elegant maltiness, deeply nutty and bitterly chocolatey, a bitterness which becomes even more powerful when the roasted barley appears in full strength, leading to a very pungent, creamy, mouth-lining, deep bitterness embellished with some floral and resinous hops and gently, but deeply warming, bourbon-like alcohol. The fine, powerful but still delicate, almost woody and nutty espresso bitterness remains in the back of the mouth for hours... In my quest to find the best stout (or beer, for that matter) in the world, this gets eerily close: the word ’balanced’ may be used all too often, but here it clearly is no cliché. You can feel that this brew is made with the greatest care; there is not one flaw in it, every part fits in perfectly... Gracious sweetness pops up, makes room for a deep bitter tone, and so the play goes on. This is one of those authentic, I’d almost say ’historically evocative’ executions of the style, it makes me feel I’m at the court of the czars, like the aged Courage Russian Imperial Stout did when I first tasted it. This stout is so cleverly made, it does not need any further additions, no barrel ageing, no weird ingredients like chilli peppers or whatever; not cloying, no burning alcohol in the finish, good head formation - and retention, noble, elegant, restrained, this achieves near perfection to my taste. Yet, I still have to taste that Black Note version, waiting in the cellar, so I’ll refrain from giving it a perfect score - for now. Wow... I’m sure anything else I’ll have on my tasting table tonight will only be trivial compared to this. Fantastic.

Re-rate October 18th 2015. Short re-rate. Opaque pitch black color, medium sized brown head. Aroma is malts, dark chocolate, dark fruits lightly, dark malts. Taste malts, dark malts, slightly roasty, but damn there’s a lot of chocolate there and not to mention a firm to heavy malt chocolate bitterness. Awesome! Way better than when first I tried it! I guess it does ’mature and develop’ as they say. Really enjoyed this one, superb! -- Original rating: 8-5-8-4-16 (4.1): Bottle [from trade with mista] @ weekly tasting shared with Dutchdrebus, Joes, Martinus, Ansjelaah and Judyvv. Opaque pitch black color, medium sized dark brown head. Aroma is malts, roasted malts, liquorice. After it warms up for about a half hour (since it was pulled out of the fridge) the aroma also gets some liquor, a hint of vanilla and possibly a hint of oak. Taste malts, roasted malts, dry, dark chocolate, bitter, some alcohol. Again, after warming up for quite a while some other flavors come through like vanilla, dark fruits and malt and hop bitter. Full body, suitable carbonation. Good beer for sure, but not one of my ultimate top ones.