9% Abv bottle from the second week of January 2003. Pours a mocha brown with some darker browns, light hints of red and orange and everything between. Good beige head that sticks around and is quite fizzy. Aroma is of dry raisins, figs, and slight hints of coffee beans. Light, but good with a hint of hops as well. Flavor begins quite carbonated, yet I don’t see any sediment and it looks quite clear. Flavor has woodiness in it, hints of dark fruit and tons of dry raisin flavor, with a solid offering of belgian yeast. The flavor is good enough to style and reminds me of Rocheforte 10, but as I keep drinking, the flavor remains too dry, too filtered tasting and ultimately, never develops enough complexity/depth of malt. Finish is odd as well, too much bitter hops apparency detracts from the style, and it has a bit of an acidic bite to it. Lots of astringency, and just kind of lifeless feeling, like they’ve filtered all of the good stuff out. Medium body, with some thinning as it warms. Quite disappointed, perhaps the 8.2 version was much better, I think I have a bottle of that aging, and along with my 3 bottles of the 9 abv aging, I’m really hoping this stuff improves. Rerate. Tried another bottle, hoping for an improvement and there was. I actually saw traces of sediment, the flavor was less dry, some esters and malt. This bottle had some life in it, but I’m still not sold. Would like to see a lot less filtration, and a LOT MORE malt/yeast complexity.