Draft @ Hickory Hops 2011, Hickory, NC. Pours a slightly hazy golden color with a small white head. Has a fruity malty weak grassy hoppy piney aroma. Fruity malty hoppy citrus flavor with hints of caramel. Has a fruity malty hoppy citrus finish.

Draught at Akkurat, Stockholm. Hazy dark amber, small head. Yeasty nose with pears and caramel. Lots of almonds. Spicy hops combines with trich caramely malt and marzipan-like yeast character. Growing bitterness. A solid, heavy handed American style Belgian style ale.

(Draught at Akkurat, Stockholm, 29 June 2011) Dark amber colour with frothy, beige head. Malty, fruity nose with dried fruit, hints of yeast, caramel, spices and floral aromas of violets. Malty, fruity, spicy taste with notes of caramel, dried fruit, hints of yeast and a spicy finish with a certain sweetness. More than medium body, sweetish. Nice Belgian twist.

Pours mahogany tinged black into a Sam glass. Mocha conglomerate head with good retention recedes leaving scant spiders. Milk chocolate and espresso aromas. Medium bodied with charred espresso upfront turning to roasted pit fruit before a lasting dark resin finish.

The pour is almost black and opaque but just a bit of light comes through at the edge to reveal that this is a very dark brown with a tall, lasting tan head. Malty roast aroma with some chocolate with a touch of hops. An aroma that at first strikes me as one from a Porter rather than a black IPA. I guess it fits the new category description pretty well though. The flavor is slightly bitter, perhaps divided between the roast malt bitterness and the hop bitterness. Some sweetness that tastes to me like there is watermelon in here. Maybe that’s the Perle hops I’m tasting? T

What i am looking for in a black ipa is the balance between the hops and the roasted malt flavor. If this was a blind taste test, i would have called this a porter, no way would this be a black ipa. due to the style being so new, there are a lot of brewers right now coming out with black ipa’s that just arent. the roasted malts completely dominate this one with the ipas taking a backseat. great color, palate is fine, aroma is of a porter. so so in my book

Very hazy and chunky muddy brown coloured body with a large frothy tan head. Aroma of malt, light spices, a touch of earth, some minor fruits and even more malt - potent. Medium-bodied; Assertive malt flavours with some sweetness soon afterwards and a good earthy, nutty flavour that lasts quite a while. Aftertaste shows more malt than anything else, a touch of alcohol and fruits with the muddy earthie notes behind. Overall, a nice dunkel with perhaps more of a focus on the malt than the other complexities, but a nice beer nonetheless. I sampled this twelve ounce bottle purchased from Bon Vivant Market in Smithfield, Virginia on 14-October-2010 for US$2.25 sampled at home in Upstate New York (New Paltz) on 07-May-2011.

Bottle, solid extremely long lasting head with some lacing, hazy dark orange colour, biscuity aroma with notes of orange marmaldae and some fruity hops in the back, malty cake flavour with white fruits and some herbs, gets better and more balanced as it warms up, long and lingering sweet bitter aftertaste. Quite good.

Bottle. Beer of the month club. Hazy amber color with a big white head. Hoppy aroma of grapefruits, floral and piney notes and some caramelly/biscuity malt notes. Flavor starts sweet and malty with some caramel and biscuits and some citric hops in the background, then turns more hoppy and fruity with floral notes and a nice bitterness (although some sweet maltiness stays there all along). Medium-bodied. Maybe a bit too much on the malty side for me, but still tasty and quite easy-drinking for an 8.5% beer.

Bottled at Oliver Twist, Stockholm. Clear amber, small head. Fruity nose with mild grapefruity hops. Medium-full bodied with clean, rounded mouthfeel. Lots of caramelly buttery malt, balanced somewhat resiny bitterness. A well made relatively malty ale.