Bottle online from Trembling Madness. Pours oily black with a slim tan head. Aroma: dark chocolate, booze, treacle. Taste: moderate sweet & bitter, rich, boozy, dark chocolate, dark fruits, wood. Medium body with light carbonation. Hefty but decent

Bottle at home in Hackney - picked up from HOTM. Pours deep brown with a bubbly, tan head. Medium sweet flavour with good hearty roast, cocoa, raisins, booze, a little vanilla, dark fruits, cherry. Medium to full bodied with fine, massaging carbonation. Warm to hot in the finish, further. Utter sweet cocoa, aged dark fruits, torched barrel, nips of smoke. Lingering warmth. Good, toothy stout.

Pretty solid sipper, a bit thin but not a Baltic Porter so it's passable as normal porter body (who knows stylewise) and the chilies are a punch immediately after opening but air out quickly, nice mild chocolate tastiness.

Barrel aged imperial porter flavoured with chili and cocoa nibs, from what I tend to consider the most accomplished of all those wonderful craft breweries the 21st-century ‘wave’ of microbrewing in Britain gave us. Pale greyish beige, small-bubbled and somewhat creamy, medium sized head quickly opening and dissolving; black robe with hazy burgundy edges. Intense bouquet of hot chocolate sauce, brandy, lots and lots of vanilla-scenting wet oak wood, toasted walnuts, marmite, beef stock touch even, vague liquorice hint, hard caramel, soy sauce, solventy shoe polish aspect, peppery note from the chilies but relatively subtle. Sweetish onset, dried figs and raisins with a dash of candied cherry, light but clear soy sauce-like umami side effect, soft carb, full and oily body; hard-caramelly, pecan-nutty malt bittersweetness, becoming increasingly dry and roasty, especially when the tannins from the oak wood appear, adding further dryness. Bourbon-like, warming alcohol in the end, leafy and peppery hops mixed with chili pepperiness though a true ‘chili burn’ remains absent, lots of woodiness and lingering malt bittersweetness. Layered, boozy and powerful beer, but in all its bulkiness and boldness still managing to maintain subtlety and balance too, with equally divided ‘subparts’ together creating something bigger than just the sum of the parts. Another Buxton masterpiece, though I would not have minded more capsaicin heat.