Bomber at home. Deepblack with short lasting brown head. Quite some coffee, dark chocolate, toffee, dried cranberries, oats, hazelnuts. Lots of bitter roasted notes and coffee, balanced by sweet toffee notes and some sugar, with a touch of sourness from berries and ash. Almost full bodied with soft carbonation and light alcohol burn.

On tap at Elizabeth Station on Stone 20th Anniversary event. Pours an opaque almost black with a brown head. Aroma is sweet, roasted malt, some leather and caramel notes. Taste is very sweet and complex with dark fruits, molasses and some leather notes. Perfect.

Tap@Taphouse, Copenhagen - (2015 version) black pour with tan head. Roasted and sweet malty aroma and taste with cocoa, caramel, nice hoppy backing, lovely. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Many thanks for sharing, Cristobal37! Almost black colour, minimal beige head; aroma of chocolate, anise, herbal notes, some tobacco and roasted nuts; taste is surprisingly sweet like honeybread (thanks for the synonime, Chris) with anise herbal liqueur and chocolate; just simply amazing!

0.66l bottle thanks to Cristobal37. Black body, light brown head. Aroma of chocolate, tobacco coffee, anis, plums and floral hops. Taste of chocolate, caramel, grapes, grapefruit, cloves, honey and floral hops. Very nice beer.

One of the great classics in the American craft beer revolution, finally got my hands on a bomber, from the 2016 edition at 10.8% ABV (so not the 10.5% mentioned here and with slightly different label). Thick and very regular, lightly lacing, deep tan coloured, creamy head resting on top of an ink black beer only revealing its burgundy hue on the edges and under bright light. Strong and classic ’impy’ aroma of espresso beans, bitter chocolate, mocha ice cream, undisturbing ’haemoglobin’ iron as in many Stone beers, burnt cane sugar, black tea, leather, unsmoked pipe tobacco, parsley, ’Haagse hopjes’, moldy walnuts, toasted brown bread, gin, nutmeg, toffee, cocoa nibs even though they aren’t physically there, dried plums, black peppercorns and some faint varnish-like solvents, but only in the very end and embedded into the whole so not bothering me at all. Lovely start: some restrained candied, raisin-like sweetness opens with a thin umami coating and a sourish undercurrent of roasted barley, burnt sugar-like sensations, immediately coating the mouth cavity and with the perfect softish amount of carbonation, prickling just a little bit here and there. Dried fruits and caramelized sugar are effortlessly carried onwards by a wave of smooth, thick, creamy maltiness, deeply and pleasantly nutty at first with toffeeish edges, deeply toasted and gaining more and more fondant- and black coffee-like roasted bitterness towards the end, where it gets the company of peppery hops adding a layer of spicy, long-lasting bitterness to the powerful roasted flavour, followed by a glow of warming, gin- and somewhat whisky-like alcohol. Caramelly malt sweetness lingers along with the roasted bitterness and the hops. Clean, to the point, rich and potent: this is an exemplary imperial stout. More experimental elaborations of the style may have surpassed it meanwhile, this is still very classic, almost ’English’, in its general make-up, but beers like this are apparently indestructible and still act as milestones and style references in an ever shifting craft beer culture. I guess this could be one of many perfect introductions to the imperial stout style, it has the right body, stature, perfect technical execution, balance of style characteristics and historical background for that. I love a good imperial stout like so many other beer geeks do, and this feels like revisiting my first experiences with the style. Lovely, righteously a classic indeed.

Musta olut ruskealla, keskikokoisella vaahdolla joka jättää aavistuksen pitsiä. Tuoksu makean maltainen, paahteisen kahvinen ja suklainen. Maku makean siirappisen maltainen, paahteisen kahvinen ja humalan kivasti kuivattama/katkeroittama. Täyteläinen ja matalahiilihappoinen suutuntuma, kiva katkerahko ja mausteinen pitkä jälkimaku. Alkoholi ei maistu lainkaan, paitsi hieman jälkimaussa. Jotain kuitenkin tuntuisi uupuvan, eikä tämä ihan täydellinen tapaus ole. Korkeaakin korkeammat odotukset täyttyivät vain osittain.