Bottle 33cl. @home poured into an English pint. Opaque deep dark brown, tall creamy macropore tan head, good retention, good lacing. Aroma roasted malts, cocoa, coffee, dark caramel, raisins, figs. Taste above medium sweet and above light bitter, malty, chocolate, coffee groundings, liquorice, spicy notes. Medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation, smooth sweetbitter aftertaste, alcoholic notes in the finish, really good.

Eigenzinnig Iepers bier - usually a description like this fails to enthuse me because it typically announces yet another unnecessary blond or tripel, but this case is different: this Ieperlink is an imperial stout, a less evident choice for a first beer by a brand new microbrewery. This brewery is set up by Erjen Adriaensen and his wife Conny Adriaen (hence the name of the brewery, combining both their last names) in a building owned by the employer of the latter, so we are not dealing with another client brewer here posing as a brewery - this is an actual microbrewery, and judging by this first beer, quite an interesting one... Mousy, mocha-beige, bit irregular but dense and stable, medium sized head on a black beer with hazy burgundy edges. Aroma of hard caramel, cappuccino, 'Haagse hopjes', toasted walnut, 'drop', paprika powder, 'fondant' chocolate, hints of Brazilian cigars, prunes, burnt brown sugar, dried blackberries, molasses. Densely sweetish onset, fig jam, raisins, slight sourish undertone, gently prickling carb (perhaps just a tad much for this style), full and slick body; nice deeply caramelly and pecan-nutty maltiness shifting to a more black-chocolatey character, while roasted bitterness appears, albeit on the gentle side, leading to an overall cappuccino-ish impression. Slight minerally effects from the carbonation linger, while spicy accents of liquorice or even 'drop', pipe tobacco and cinnamon appear in the background; quite leafy, long hop bitterness does tip the balance to finishing bitterness, accentuated by a warming glow of calvados-like alcohol. Belgian style imperial stout, I reckon - see the likes of Hopscheppers Imperial Kroezer, Het Nest Dead Man's Hand, Cabardouche Stout Mokke but also e.g. the imperial stout by the trappist monks of Spencer in the U.S. - but in that context, a surprisingly decent one, a tad overcarbonated for the style perhaps but rich and balanced, with a nicely clean, 'full' profile. Never saw this coming, I guess we also have to thank Joeri Devolder from Kaffee Bazaar to bring this one to the beer community's attention - and damn right he was. I guess for the next batch, Mr. and Mrs. Adriaen/sen will have to produce more than just 469 bottles, as was apparently the case with this first batch...