Cloudy dark amber to brown color. Caramel aroma, mature, with chocolate, a bit cheesy. Strong flavor of caramel; moderate residual sweetness; also good malt flavor, strong chocolate, with notes of wood and raisins. Correct bitterness; the final is quite chocolatey, with some roasted nuts, more sweet; the alcohol is well hidden. Very good.

Courtesy of TampaBrew. Thankfully I waited to actually put pen to pad and tick this puppy. I had it three times within the first year of release and just didn’t feel like taking notes each time. This time around the elixir proves to those sharing in its goodness that there’s no infection here. The cap popped off with the bottle at only cellar temperature of about 55F, with a mild puff and the liquid then ran into each glass with only a modest head. Yep, no big volcano at opening, no big foamer into each glass and no sharp acidic aromatics associated with a problem. All is well. The aroma is smooth sweet molasses rolling quickly into caramel covered apricot, prunes and slivers of grapefruit and spicy almost oak like notes. The taste is smooth and near slick with prune infused molasses, caramel covered red apples and then mild tart grapefruit. It finishes fairly dry with muted spicy yeast and muted spicy hops taking this to closure. Wow!