David Vader Imperial Stout

From a porcelain swingtop bottle at Ganzerik in Gent, generously shared by Ster, thanks! Never heard of this brewery and first expected to receive a classic imperial stout, but apparently this is made with whisky malt, marshmallows and tonka beans - aside from some Freigeist experiments, this sure belongs to the more ’exotic’ German beers I have encountered so far. Rocky, very thick and dense, yellowish beige, lacing, regularly shaped, stable head; opaque black robe, only revealing a slight mahogany hue in the very end. Aroma reminds me more of a oud bruin than an imperial stout at first, with hints of sour grapes, blackberries, dusty old dried herbs, passion fruit, caramel, sherry vinegar, treacle, brown beans, cinnamon (probably the tonka beans), redcurrant, vanilla, dark sweet chocolate, walnuts, cocoa powder, elderberry syrup - an odd combo which took me a while to get used to. Same for the taste: kicking off with a lot of sourish berry and stonefruit tartness but not in a sharp way, rather a subdued sourishness of elderberry, redcurrant and passion fruit cutting through the whole palate, distracting a bit from a deeper, sweet toffeeish and chocolatey, thick, oily malt body, confronting sweetness (perhaps from the marshmallows) with the unexpected oud bruin-like sourness; finish in a tart red wine-like tartness with again traces of chocolatey sweetness, some powdery yeast and a hint of warming, whisky-ish alcohol; an actual whisky malt flavor remains concealed in the background. I expected more retronasal sweet spiciness from the tonka beans and more outspoken whisky flavor - as well as a lot less of this oud bruin-like tartness, but then the concept of ’sour stout’ sprung to mind and that actually helped appreciating this. A bit challenging, unexpected, with a sourness that kind of blots out the finesses of the tonka beans, whisky malt and marshmallow - so in that sense the concept could have been executed better, but in the end, I rate unusual beers like this by the simple question of whether I eventually enjoyed them or not. Maybe it was the company, maybe it was the environment, maybe it was the label evoking the opening crawl from Star Wars, but in all, I did enjoy this beer and may revisit it one day, so I cannot but give it a high score.