12 ounce bottle. Picked this up yesterday and had to try it straight away. Opaque dark brown color topped by a small creamy tan head. Aroma is a paradox of complexity. Notes of smoke, maple syrup, foil, walnut oil, cocoa and birch. First sip is bittersweet chocolate and maple syrup. Further along comes the warming alcohol and vanilla. Then, a finish of herbal liquor, rum-soaked raisins and cough syrup.

Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a black color with a medium sized foamy dark brown head that left decent lacing. The aroma was roasty with floral hops, anise and a bit of cocoa. The flavor was toasty malts with vanilla, cocoa a bit of coffee and port wine. Long finish. Moderately full bodied. Solid.

This beer pours a brown-black color with a medium tan head that burns away steadily to a film. Small patches of lacing on the glass. Aroma of malt, chocolate and dark fruit. Full-bodied with flavors of oaky bourbon, vanilla, chocolate malt and a bit of fruit. The finish is oaky with a bourbon and malt aftertaste. Pretty good overall.

Rerate: as this beer is now listed at 13.5% (Finally Legal label) but my original rating below is for an 11.9% version (21st Anniversary label). Much as I thought, this is boozy in the nose, with cocoa and caramel. Chocolate and smoke flavors, a bit cloying, mild acrid finish, boozy but not too bad for the scale of this, which is consistent with my comments about the 11.9% version. While I think this is slightly less good than the previous one I rated, I’m not changing the numbers.

It was pretty good though I have to say I’m just not all that excited about imperial stouts anymore. But this reminded me of why I liked Weyerbacher back in the early 2000s when I lived in Philadelphia. They just make good solid beers. This one was amazingly drinkable and not at all boozy for 11.9% ABV. I didn’t actually taste anything resembled bourbon in this, or really not even a barrel characteristic much at all. There were notes of vanilla and cocoa, mostly vanilla, but it was still faint and not the kind of vanilla you get from bourbon/oak but more of a vanilla extract flavor. Strong roast and sweet malts, good full finish.