Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 7.5 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 8

Vanilla-flavoured edition of what appears to be an imperial stout also existing by itself, from a new nanobrewery operated by a husband and wife team in Baudour, a village northwest of Mons in the Belgian Hainaut province, focusing on postmodern craft beers rather than the traditional ales often seen in Belgium (and certainly Wallonia). Thick and dense, creamy, deep mocha-brownish, fluffy, consistently membrane-lacing, quite regular, slowly thinning and opening head resting on a pitch black beer with wafer thin copper-red edges. Aroma of coffee cream, burnt wood, cigar ashes, hard caramel, bitter black chocolate, roasted chicory, coffee grounds, some very vague vanilla but not nearly as much as I was hoping for and really drowning in the background, raw 'haricots verts', toast, raw kale (not in a DMS way though), dry clay, gin, molasses, unsugared chewing gum, nutmeg. Dried dark fruits in the onset, sweetish with hints of dried dates, dried apple peel and old raisins, slight umami edge (beef stock) but thinly so, softish carbonation with very full, creamy, oily, unctuous mouthfeel. Thick to even almost syrupy body - layers of black chocolate, hard caramel, roasted walnuts and burnt bread crust, sweet initially but somewhat less so than is often the case in present-day imperial stout and quickly shifting to roasted bitterness, acquiring a deeply chicory- and coffee-like character with even hints at charcoal and cigar ashes here and there. This mouth-filling roasted bitterness is supported by a bold dosage of leafy-spicy hop bitterness and, more than anything, a pronounced gin-like booziness, heating the finish in a peppery way and highlighting that roasty black coffee aspect. Hints of bayleaf, nutmeg, vague liquorice and marmite flare up, but the promised vanilla remains very faint, though it noticeably lingers retronasally after swallowing. I guess I had too many postmodern flavoured strong stouts (pastry or not) with vanilla overdoses to instantly appreciate this element being as thrifty as it is here, but I have to admit that in the end, its subtlety is charming and interesting as well. Boozy, roasty, bit ashy 'Belgian-ish' imperial stout, but not disturbed by irrelevant yeast effects and not showing any real flaws, being bold, very thick and smooth and richly layered - this beer turns out different from what I was expecting, but it is certainly worth visiting. I wonder what this Diaz project, popping up unexpectedly recently, is capable of in other genres, so this definitely is one to watch. Reminiscent of what e.g. Misery is doing elsewhere in Wallonia, to a certain extent.