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

Bottle from Geers. Hazy dark brown to black, stable, foamy, beige head. Aroma of bourbon, pear, candied fig, prune, vanilla, dark fudge, dried banana, milk chocolate, mocha. Taste has sweet pear, fig & dried banana in a thick malt body of fudge, pecan, almond & milk chocolate, slightly herbal note, gently roasted mocha. Soft herbal hops in the finish, lingering dried fruits, some coffee roast and warming bourbon alcohol. Medium to full body, thin creamy texture, soft carbonation. Hefty, tasty Stout, but generally a bit too sweet.

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

330 ml bottle. Pours black with moderate foamy head. Aromas of licorice, dark fruity chocolate, and slick roasted malts. Flavors follow same; thick rich and a bit sweet though cannot really get the bourbon.

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

My tasting will come by way of a 33 cl bottle from retailer Etre Gourmet. I have my large globe glass in place, time for a pour. Very dark, fully black with a persistent skim of recharged parchment foam. Lots of chocolate, pecans and some roastiness in the nose. But I’m here for the drink. Well now, this is a good beer. Bakers chocolate, strawberries, booze, wood, pecans again and a touch of caramel sweetness. All this and a firm bitterness concluding. Quite all right.

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

At BXL. Almost black. Bourbon, sugary malts, tobacco, molasses, raisins, licorice. Quite sweet, a bit thin bodied.

Magus, mõru, šokolaad, kuiv, kakao, kohv, veits happeline, alks. Ok.

Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6.5 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 8

Imperial stout by Atrium, aged in bourbon barrels; fits in the 'Atrium Reserva' series and comes with classy label (too bad people do not seem to bother too much anymore with adding a picture when they create a new beer on this site...). Tightly membrane-lacing, medium thick, tiny-bubbled, greyish pale beige, slowly breaking head but retaining well as a firm creamy ring and greyish veil over a very dark chocolate brown beer - as good as black, but with still some reddish burgundy-hued translucency. Aroma of toffee, prunes soaked in eau de vie, sweet vanilla-ish bourbon and oak wood, cocoa, fig juice, freshly cut red apple peel, latté macchiato, burnt toast piercing through, old hazelnuts, hints of ruby port, damp earth, faint liquorish, dried blackberries and freshly whipped cream. Sweet, dense onset, residual candi-like sugars with near-juicy fruity notes of fig, pear and red apple, slight sourish streak of blackberry underneath, lively carbonated with very full, thick, syrupy body, a bit thinned by alcohol. Slight bubblegummy effects and lingering dark but lively, estery fruitiness accompany a rounded toffeeish malt middle with Ersatz-chocolatey and lightly pecan-nutty sides, maintaining too much sweetness for me, even when a bit of coffee-like roasted bitterness comes along; the bourbon, very clearly present, adds extra sweetness and a lot of sweet alcohol, making the finish astringently boozy. Apart from the alcohol glow (and wryness - though this aspect is largely absorbed by the malts), vanilla-like oak aspects pop up, but in a much too subtle way; woody tannins also remain too weak to put up against the overall toffeeish and bubblegummy sweetness. Candied dark fruit and cocoa notes linger in the end. Why do these strong stouts always have to be so damn sweet these days? I think I know why, but I did not work my way through a bunch of dry, roasted bitter ones for years to now end up with this. I was expecting more, even though I am well aware that Atrium has produced some pretty sweet stouts throughout the years - but this one does not contain lactose and is not intended as a pastry stout, so I guess I was hoping for an old school 'BBA' imperial stout along the lines of BCBS or Founders' KBS. I think ageing it for a longer time on a barrel with less leftover bourbon, so that the wood becomes more prominent and can add more drying tannins, could greatly improve this one; more roasted barley in the malt bill may help too, but that would be altering the basic recipe, of course... But while we are at it: maybe another yeast with a less 'bubblegummy' ester effect could be a good start as well, because this aspect kept bothering me all the way through, maybe even more so than the sweetness. In all: ambitious and certainly interesting, but not really achieving those ambitions, at least not in my opinion.

--- Beer merged from original tick of Futuro on 10 Apr 2022 at 17:56 - Score: 8

Botella de @Brasserie Atrium, 05/06/2022. Color negro corona de espuma beige, aromas torrefactos, cacao, sabor torrefacto, bourbon.

Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 8

21/V/22 - sample @ Leuven Innovation, BB: n/a (2022-563) Thanks to Sebletitje for sharing today’s beers!

Clear dark brown to black beer, no head. Aroma: sweet, malty, gentle roast, lots of chocolate, grains, cow fodder. MF: ok carbon, medium body. Taste: sweet start, a good roast, bitter, lots of alcohol, malty, grains, sugary, coffee notes. Aftertaste: more roast, quite some alcohol, a bit sweet, sourish touch as well, dark chocolate, bitter, a little sugary, good, but not getting a lot of bourbon though.