Black with lasting thin head. Aroma and flavour have an abundance of sweet roots like liquorice and a little aniseed. Also some elements of roasted malt bitterness, a little sweetened coffee. The sweet malt and honey notes of the Speyside whisky really come through well in the finish.

Big thanks to Meeki for the bottle - I can see he also provided my esteemed colleague with one... Hazy black, stable, small, foamy, tan head. Aroma of sweet & woody whisky, milk chocolate, meringue, butterscotch, custard, candied fig, ripe plum, mocha, coffee cream, pear. Taste has sweet fig, red apple, pear & plum coated with chocolate & cream, edge of vanilla (wood?) with bittersweet mocha piercing through, whiff of whisky already apparent; very softly toasty bitter in the middle, accent of umami gravy too. Ends sweet malty yet earthy hoppy, lingering dried fruit, chocolate & cream, adorned by that delicate sweet whisky again - one can hardly call it alcohol warmth, just the right amount of added flavour. Medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation. Deserves another point for sheer execution: Hoppug shows that there's no need to drop the 'alcohol bomb'; delicately adding the whisky treatment to a base beer can bring equal success.

New variant of Hoppug's milk stout - I assume the recipe is based on their original Free Bird milk stout, but the name 'Free Bird' as such has apparently been abandoned; aged on Speyside whisky barrels, so typically non-peated whisky. The identity of the whisky as such remains undisclosed, probably because it was no longer identifiable (considering how used Scottish whisky barrels tend to end up in a depot and get mixed up there). Big thanks to Meeki Meekio for this bottle! Medium sized, initially frothy, later gradually thinning but stable, pale greyish-beige, creamy head, at last resulting in an opening 'ring' with some flat greyish 'islands' in the middle; very dark chocolate brown robe (as good as black) with lightly hazed burgundy edges. Aroma of melting 'fondant' chocolate bars, 'koetjesreep', caramel, indeed a 'sting' of Speyside whisky clearly piercing through (becoming more 'broad' and obvious when warming up), espresso, roasted pecan nuts, wet leather, burnt raisins, prunes, cream or even milk, molasses, subtler hints of sweet dark pipe tobacco, oak wood (even slight vanilla but faintly so), rainwater, Maggi seasoning sauce, pumpernickel bread, elderberry syrup. Sweetish onset but nowhere cloying, candied fig, lots of black raisins and blackberry compote but also a hint of ripe pear, light 'umami sauce' at the edges (Maggi) but keeping itself quiet enough not to disturb the rest of the flavours, dim sourish undertone, quite spritzy carbonation (especially for the style) but in a refined, tiny-bubbled way; smooth, slick, rounded body, seemingly thinned a bit by the Speyside whisky. Lovely caramelly core with a dark-chocolatey edge, creamy lactose effect reminding you that this is still a milk stout, even a touch of actual milk powder or other diary; the nuttiness and toasted bitterishness however grows towards the finish, shifting things more into the direction of a dry stout even, an effect enhanced in this case by the whisky barrel ageing, becoming increasingly apparent in the finish in the form of an overseeing, oaky woodiness (though remaining limited in that typical vanilla aspect and not becoming overly astringent either) and - after that - indeed the expected whisky flavour, becoming clear enough without interfering with the beer itself; the whisky penetrates the beer without making it unpleasantly boozy or liquor shot-like and that is something I can certainly appreciate in a world where barrel ageing is all the hype and one overly boozy stout follows another harsh tripel. The wood and the whisky are unmistakably there and add their typical effects to this beer, but do so in an elegant way, without distorting the beer's own character - have a point for accomplishing that. It should be noted that a blackberry juice-like sourish effect also lingers in the background, adding another layer of flavour. The old English milk stout has a long history in Flanders - I remember a now long-lost Martin's stout being the first stout I ever had, more than thirty years ago - and has long been the only subtype of stout known here (and imitated by local brewers, see Wilson's by Van Steenberge, Pony Stout by De Brabandere and so on) before the American craft beer movement began to slowly trickle down and gave us a bunch of high-profile, sometimes downright bombastic imperial stouts, but it is nice to see that Hoppug apparently still fondly remembers the old milk stout and decided to do something interesting with it. This is not their first milk stout variant, not even the first wood-aged one, and geeks expecting a big, exuberant imperial stout might well be disappointed, but I am perfectly happy with this one: it cannot be denied that ageing a decidedly 'non-imperial' milk stout in oak barrels is enough of a rarity by itself, and certainly in Belgium, where I cannot even think of another one right now. Interesting, pleasant, flawless - and recommended for those who are willing to venture into another region of the vast darkness that is the realm of stout and porter.