21.07.2013, 0,25l bottle @ home:
Small brown creamy longlasting head. Aroma is rich and slightly sweet, dark malts, licorice, oak, dark sugar, alcohol, cocoa, grass, caramel, coffee. Taste is rich and slightly sweet, dark malts, dark sugar, licorice, dark berries, oak, grass, alcohol, cocoa, caramel. Longlasting bitterness, dry mouthfeel. Very nice, but the regular one and bourbon edition is way better.

Bottle thanks to a trade! Pours an oily black with a thin dark brown head that starts and remains at the edges. Aroma has a good amount of bitter dark grains and roasted malts with a hint of coffee and warming cognac. Flavor is bitter chocolate and roasted malts that are joined by a nice cognac warming note. Extremely smooth.

25 cl. bottle poured in to a snifter. Pitch black with a small, tan head. Sweet aroma with rich, roasted malts, dark chocolate, coffee, cognac shows as a mellow alcohol note with oak, dark dried fruits. Hints of licorice and vinous notes. Excellent. Taste is heavy sweet. Full body, oily feel and a flat carbonation. Perfect palate for an imp. stout! Long lasting bitter finish with rich, roasted malts. Alcohol shows as a pleasant burn. What an excellent experience!

The beer is extremely dark and looks thick. A brown film clings to the walls of the glass where the beer has touched. There’s pretty much no head. What bubbles I can kick up with some swirling are dark brown. The aroma has a whole bunch of fudgy dark chocolate, firm roast and an oaky vinous flavor from the barrel-aging. Lots of sweet caramel maltiness beneath all of that. Some vanilla and sweet fruitiness. Well-integrated and a good level of barrel intensity. Relatively mild booze for the abv. The taste is sweet and rich. Lots of stout and barrel flavor. Quite a bit of caramel and milk chocolate upfront. Then, it gets more dark chocolate and roast. The barrel is big in the finish. Big cognac barrel in the finish. Feel is thick with some booze burn. Very good stout, but it doesn’t justify the high price tag. Still, I’m not really complaining all that much, and it handily beats many very hyped imperial stouts.

25 cl bottle @ lusikka
Vertical with Calvados
Sweet and quite heavy aroma with licorice, woody notes, cocoa and some smooth cognac. Flavour is sweet with slightly stinging cognac, some slightly salty licorice, herbal notes, alcohol and some rubbery notes. Alcohol comes though and stings, but then again it disturbs just a little. A slow sipper.

250ml bottle from Systembolaget

Vertical with Calvados Edition - Pours pitch black with a brown head. Nice aroma of roasted malts, wood, oak, licorice, hints of sweet cognac. Taste is strong, roasty, wooden and oaky with notes of licorice, cognac and molasses. FInish is sweetish, roasty and smooth with licorice, wood, oak, cognac, vanilla and molasses. Quite tasty and well balanced imperial stout with cognac. Not quite as good as the Calvados Edition, though.

Bottle from 5K backlog. Pours oily black with brown head. Nose and taste of licorice, roast chocolate malt, milk chocolate, cognac infused oak, vanilla, ash, leather and graham cracker. Full bodied. Smooth.