Magic 8 Ball

Draught@Euston Tap, London. Deep ambery brown colour with a small beige head. Aroma is chocolate, coffee, roasted malts along with some slight toffeeish and hoppy notes. Flavour is rather similar with the fruityness being more evident. A bit more like a hopped stout or porter than a black IPA, but still a good good beer nonetheless.

Draught at Oliver Twist, Stockholm. Pitch black, small beige head. Aroma of salty licorice and grapefruit. Dry with medium-full body, rounded mouthfeel. Hoppy, balanced with roastiness. Notes of tar, long bitter finish wherem dark chocolate and licorice lingers.

On tap @ CASK Pub & Kitchen, London. This is a deep dark brown one with a lacing light ashy head. It really has lot's of coffee beans on the aroma. Chocolate and cocoa also, but the coffee beans is dominating. Really good flavors here! Light roasted with chocolate, bitter chocolate and some cold coffee. Feels well balanced and it's quite easy and clean. Average carbonation, full-bodied. Tasty! 22.07.2012

Bottle. Creamy lightbrown good mostly lasting head. Black colour. Heavy malty and hoppy aroma. Very roasted. Long moderate bitter flavor. Heavy bitter long finish. Creamy palate.

Served from keg tap into a tulip at the Cask, Pimlico, (Feb ’12). Medium black in colour, slighly brownish when held to the light, with a thin off-white head which soon thins to a small pond like surface covering. To the nose I was getting hops, liquorice and a smokey-woody aroma. Flavour wise, bitter hops, smoked malts, burnt tasting daark roasted sugar, pine and a backdrop of tropical fruit. Mouthfeel was perhaps the downfall to this beer in my opinion, too much carbonation spoilt it for me and have nver noticed this to such an extent in previous Magic Rock offerings. Finishes with a bitter-sharp aftertaste.

Bottle from Mr Lawrence Wine Merchants, Brockley. Black pour with a beige head. Sweetcorn, blackcurrant and blackberry nose. Nice. Dark fruit flavour with a hint of malt and caramel. Quite a smooth character. Long bitter-sweet finish.

330ml Bottle - Black with a foamy tan head. Pine, liquorice, grapefruit and chocolate in the aroma. Roasted and chocolatey taste with notes of liquorice, roasted malt, chocolate and coffee. Smooth, hoppy and easy to drink.

Keg at CP&K. It pours jet black, with a thick beige head. The nose is pine, resin, toffee, charcoal, toast, roasted malt and charred wood. The taste is liquorice, resinous hops, salted caramel, dark toffee, pine, alcohol warmth, smoke, charcoal, leaf, toast and roasted malt, with a long bitter-sweet finish. Medium-full body and moderate carbonation. A flavoursome black IPA.

[Bottle from Westholme Stores, Goring] Black with a moderate tan head and a light fizz. Grapefruit and urine up front (fortunately the urine gradually fades as you drink more) with a smear of something tropical. Then the malt flavours come through - soot, tar, tobacco and leather, with peppery hints. Then back to the hops - lots more grapefruit and this time pine and maybe something tropical. Then back to the smokiness, with some peat bog, cocoa and definitely a comfy, patched leather sofa. And then maybe a hint of ginger at the back of the throat. But at the end I think the hops just win the ping pong battle. A fascinating, interesting beer - like Thornbridge Raven, it pulls off the rather unique trick of mystically switching in turn between the malt and the hop flavours rather than mixing them together. However, I didn’t think the hops in this worked quite as well as those in Raven, and thus it gets a lower mark. Still a damn tasty beer though.