Bottle from Beers@Moviefun.
A: hazy dark brown, stable, foamy, beige head.
A: pine resin, coffee bean, grapefruit peel, toast, prune, tobacco.
T: sweetish mango & brambleberry, toast, toasted coconut, coffee.
F: earthy & resinous hops, bitter grapefruit & toast, black olive.
P: medium body, oily texture, soft carbonation.
Well-structured example.

Black IPA by this increasingly confident new craft brewer in Limburg, named after the 'saint of the day' as usual with these beers - in this case Vitalis of Milan, who allegedly died a torturous death in 2nd-century Ravenna. Light gusher, so be careful when opening. Thick and foamy, plaster-like lacing, pale yellow-beige, very moussy and fluffy, stable head over an initially clear, deep chestnut-bronze beer with ruddy-coppery glow, misty with sediment - but definitely not 'black'. Aroma of pine needles, toasted red onions, coffee grounds, dried prunes, candied fig, hard caramel, wormwood, crushed black peppercorns, burnt toast, old pecan nuts, hints of tree bark, damp earth, dandelion, liquorice, sweet cicely, cigar ashes. Rounded onset, some clean fruity sweetishness (red apple, blackcurrant, vague pear) with very faint touches of black olive-like umami here and there, lively carbonated with minerally effects, slick and somewhat oily mouthfeel; hard-caramelly and dry old pecan-nutty malt core, sweetish and a bit bready at first but quickly shifting to bitterish toastiness without going all coffee-like in the end - instead, from the middle onwards, the dark maltiness resides a bit and makes room for a piney, wormwoody, peppery hoppiness with oniony and grapefruity accents, adding bitterness which lasts and lasts, without 'scorching' the smoothness of the malts too much. Some dark bready and nutty elements linger alongside these piney, spicy hops. Clean and rounded, like most HopHemels, but by the looks of it, more a (dark) brown IPA than a true black IPA - though I hasten to add that the general dark, toasty, piney feel of a true 'Cascadian' is actually very well conveyed here, indeed more so than is usually the case in European black IPAs. I think the relative restraint in roastedness has left enough room for the hops to shine (in an oldskool New World way, mind you) at the right moment, which to me is a key feature of a well-balanced black IPA. Have a point for that alone.