#canada

As "Bourbon Barrel Aged Imperial Porter", the 2021 (and later) canned version - spotted in the AD Delhaize Zwijnaarde in Ghent, much to my surprise. Medium sized, quite dense and creamy, greyish pale beige, slowly thinning and opening but generally stable head; black robe with thin purplish-burgundy red edges. Classic but intense bouquet of obvious sweet bourbon, chocolate liqueur, strong vanilla-scenting oak wood, lots of toffee, chestnut purée, caramelized brown sugar, blackberry wine, nougat, ground hazelnuts, cold cappuccino, ovomaltine, Irish coffee, hints of 'speculoospasta', almond, bayleaf, cinnamon, Mallomars, some fusel alcohols. Full, sweet onset, rounded impressions of blueberry jam, candied apple, fig compote and ripe blue plum, softly carbonated with a very thin layer of porcini-like umami on top; smooth, oily, very full body, a tad thinned by the bourbon which becomes apparent early on, dispensing 'stings' of heating, peppery alcohol here and there through layers of deeply chocolatey, hazelnutty, nougat- and toffee-like malts, sweet with a mild coffeeish-bitterish edge but not going full roasted - and in that sense indeed imperial porter in the modern sense of the word rather than imperial stout. Woody tannins, including that typical oaky vanilla scent, come up strongly in the finish, with their astringency amplified by the bittersweet alcohol from the bourbon, the flavour of which becomes rather dominant in the end, though the toffee-, ovaltine- and chocolate-like layers of maltiness do their best to absorb much of it. Some leafy hops linger beneath all this, but the power play of bourbon versus malts remains in the foreground, as an epic spectacle. Powerful and boozy but not necessarily more than one expects from an American 'BBA' imperial porter; in many ways a textbook example of this style - and one I love if it is well done. This, even if the bourbon is perhaps a tad too dominant for me personally, is undeniably well done and would easily have received a few points more from me if the bourbon were a tad less explicit. One to slip slowly on a chilly winter evening.