Tap@Peders, Copenhagen (02/01/2020) - black with a tan head. Sweet dark malty with notes of cherries coming in, sweet but also slightly tart cherry coming in, some chocolate, the cherry has a slight artificial edge to it, medium plus body, cheery infused sweet dark malty close.

Pours black, smell is full, chocolate, bit cherries. Taste is sharp, rather boozy, tad tart. Cherries, bit alcoholic. Higher carbo, bit dry body.

Keg @ HoG. Pours a deep dark brown, deep brown head. Aroma is sweet, artificial strawberry syrup, cherry, chocolate. Taste presents tangy strawberry, cherry with an unctiously sweet body, medium carbonation, dark roast, creamy chocolate.. pretty intense, perhaps a little too sweet but plenty going on here.

Strong stout with cocoa nibs and – more surprisingly – sweet cherries (hence the Japanese ‘sakura’); at BCBF. Thin, greyish beige, open ring of a head on a blackish beer with deep reddish burgundy hue (the malt bill was intentionally kept a bit paler than normal for an imperial stout in order to let the red glow of the cherries shine through, according to the brewer). Aroma of lots of cherry acidity and fruitiness, with vague raspberry- and blueberry-like aspects as well, milk chocolate, fudge, blackberry jam, coffee cream, raisin bread, sweet red cherry candy. Sweet and sour onset, lots of fleshy fruitiness, ripe black cherries in a generous dosage, fizzily carbonated; full, oily mouthfeel, thinned a bit by both the fruit’s sour aspect and the lively carbonation (I guess the fruit has provoked an additional fermentation at some point), lovely rounded toffeeish, chocolatey and hazelnutty maltiness, with a mild coffee-like roasted bitterness in the end; meanwhile the sourness of the fruit continues too, with a drying effect. A Kirsch-like, warming alcohol glow in the end ties everything together. Fruit stouts are often either too sour or too candy-sweet, this one has a bit of both, making it all the more interesting; I often find the strong fruit flavours and the strong ‘stout-malt’ flavours clashing a bit in this ‘substyle’, but in this particular case I have to admit that everything comes together well in the end. Enjoyable and a bit ‘different’, I liked this one.

Tap @ Mig & Ølsnedkeren. Black with small beige head. Aroma is roasted malt, cherry, cocoa and chocolate. Flavour is roasted malt, chocolate, caramel, cherry, citric, lemon, medium sweet, warming and medium bitter.

Draught @ Mig & Ølsnedkeren. Pours black with a brown head. Aroma of roasted malt, caramel, cocoa, light coffee, red berries, cherry. Flavor is sweet, light tart, roasted malt, coffee, cocoa, wet wood, tart Reed berries, cherry, alcohol. Medium body, average carbonation, light sweet, tart fruity finish with warming alcohol. 221119