Mad About Cacao

Cocoa-flavoured imperial stout made by Frontaal in collaboration with renowned Spanish craft brewery Laugar; bottle at Dok Brewing Company. Membrane-lacing, thick and frothy, dense, pale yellowish beige, stable head over a black beer with thin mahogany edges. Aroma of lots of black bitter chocolate, roasted pecan nuts, bitter cocoa nibs, cappuccino, blackberry jam, granola, raisins, clear 'blood'-like iron, figs soaked in rum, toffee, coffee grounds. Sweetish onset, dried dates and raisins, sourish edge, quite lively, spritzy carbonation for the style but still developing a thick, oily, glueish, 'heavy' body of deep nutty, toffeeish and chocolatey maltiness, its chocolatey character eventually highlighted by the added cocoa, though the sweetness is kept firmly in line by a robust, welcoming roasted, coffee grounds-like, rooty bitterness enhanced by a confident dosage of peppery and slightly resinous hops (with even a noticeable piney accent retronasally); still, after the bitterness and warmed up by a rum-like alcohol glow, sweetness pops up again after the roastiness has passed, ending in a somewhat maple syrup-like flavour (weirdly) more than cocoa. Nice 'layered' stout, full and rich, with quite a lot going on in the mouth - very high class in that respect, though it fell a bit flat compared with Omnipollo's Hypnopompa my girlfriend was drinking next to it...

Bottle at home. Pours black, nose is caramel, floral, meaty chocolate, taste is roasted, coffee, caramel, chocolate, meaty, soy sauce.

Bottle from Boxbeers. Black with a ligt brown head. Aroma is sweet, roasted malt and chocolate. Flavor is quite sweet and rather bitter. Dry and rather bitter finish. Oily. 190718

Draught @ Oirschots Bierfestival 2018. Dark brown to black color, nearly opaque. Smell and taste malts, roasted malts, cocoa, dark malt bitter, lingering roast bitter. Medium to full body, medium carbonation. Lovely beer.