330ml bottle from Bieres et Chopes, near Nantes. Pours black with a off white head. Aromas & tastes of milk chocolate, rye, nuts, hints of spice & roasted malt. Medium body. Dry light bitter finish. Very enjoyable

Hoppy ‘India’ porter by this French craft brewery near Paris, carrying the old familiar pike in its logo. At LIBF. Thick and frothy, foamy, pale yellow-beige, lacing, stable, firm head on a jet black beer with very thin mahogany edges. Aroma of fried black olives, burnt currants, blackened toast, dry leather, black peppercorns, toasted onion, tea, rainwater, rye bread crust, porcini. Dryish onset, some dried fig and burnt blackcurrant, hints of porcini- and olive-tinged umami, mildly carbonated with oily mouthfeel; toasty to slightly ‘burnt’ black maltiness in the middle, rye bread spiciness vaguely noticeable but quickly turning a bit more charcoal-like and, more than anything, hop bitter in a rooty, leafy, peppery manner, even a tad piney. Both elements make for a long, bitter, spicy, roasty, ashy, very dry finish – as has been demonstrated before, an ‘India porter’ is physically nothing else than a Cascadian dark ale (black IPA), though the hop character is clearly more Old World than New World in this one. Regardless, I enjoyed this one, being into black IPA…