Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

Bottled. Pours brownish black with beigish head. Aroma is very smoky wood light choco malts and wood.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

Bottle at home. Aroma is dark malt, caramel, coffee, some liquorice, roast and milk chocolate. Soft touch of vanilla and fruits. Flavour is moderate sweet and bitter. Body is just above medium. Tasty ’light Imperial Stout’, good complexity.

Historic check-in

Sehr röstig, eine deutliche Malz-Süsse, so dass die heftige Bitterkeit doch noch ausbalanciert wird. Kein easy drink.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 6.5

Pours dark brown, looks black in the glass. About one finger of light brownish head. Good retention and some lacing. Kind of restrained, softish aroma: roasted malts bordering a softer edge, coffee grains, the thinnest fruit cake note, possibly a hint of chocolate. Taste is much sharper and vigorous than the relatively soft aroma suggested. Roasted malts with a bit acidity, coffee grains, possibly slight chocolate. Medium sweetness and quite high bitterness. Balanced entrypoint, clean-cut bitter, dry finish and aftertaste. Medium bodied with low to medium carbo, resulting in a quite thick mouthfeel. Not exactly what you usually think of imperial stout, perhaps closer to an export stout. The beer is overall well made and very much ok, but it kind of felt like it was in the middle between imperial stout's power and export stout's drinkability, while not really reaching any of the two.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Endelig, etter en surrealistisk koronatørke er vi igjen samlet på Mi2, og seremonimester Melberg har med de fem foregående fatølene sørget for en lun og trygg stemingen i denne komfortsonens hovedmanesje. Brunsvart med fint skum som varer. Salt lakris, mørkbrent kaffe, solbær, 70%-sjokolader, hint av furunål og torvrøyk. Tørr ettersmak. A true English gentleman - elegant and understated.

Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 8.5

From tap at the first Mi2 at Cardinal 25.05.20 after the corona closure. Very dark mahogany. Beige head. Excellent aroma and taste of roasted barley, salted liquorice, blackcurrants and pine shoots. Excellent aftertaste. Still very quaffable.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7

Appearance is nearly black, with a 1-finger beige head. Aroma is chocolate, caramel, malts, toasty malt, toffee, bit more chocolate. Taste is chocolate pudding, roast malt, hints of ashy roast, treacle toffee, caramel, chewy malt, bitter dark chocolate.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

Classic ‘Russian’ imperial stout by what are at least partially the ‘founding fathers’ of the British craft beer movement, bottle bought at Geers. Thick and foamy, frothy, membrane-lacing, pale ecru-beige head on a very dark blackish-brown beer – yet not completely opaque, but allowing a glow of warm burgundy red to shine through. Rather restrained aroma (certainly in comparison with most modern imperial stouts) of ground walnuts, brown bread crust, hard caramel candy, black coffee, bitter chocolate but subtly so, hints of bayleaf, brown soap, tea, damp earth, beef stock cubes, dried bitter herbs. Light sweetishness in the onset, a hint of dried date and old raisin but otherwise very clean, hint of dry beef stock umami; slick mouthfeel, full but rounded and smooth, hard-caramelly and very toasted-nutty malt profile slowly but decidedly shifting to a roasted chicory-like, strong, mouth-filling roasty bitterness, with a blood-like iron edge to it and aided by a peppery hop bitterness. A subtle gin-like alcohol warmth ensues. Quite firmly roasted bitter, not overly strong for the style (at least not in our postmodern age) and without frills: this is imperial stout the way it was made (long) before the advent of U.S. craft brewing, I find it in fact quite amazing that this degree of almost historical ‘old-schoolness’ is still done in this genre… Those old enough to be familiar with e.g. Courage or Samuel Smith’s Imperial Stout should appreciate this one. I certainly did.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 7.5

On tap at Cardinal, Stavanger. Pours black with beige head. Aroma of pine needles, roasted, smokey and floral notes. Tastes bitter with little sweetness. Medium bodied, bitter finish.