Bottle, directly from brewery webshop. Color: Pitch black, thin brown head. Aroma: Roasted malt, oak wood, vanilla hints. Taste: Roasted malt, quite a lot of oak wood, tannins, some mocha / coffee and vanilla. Very smooth mouthfeel. Starting malty, moderate to over moderate sweet, some hopbitterness at the finish. Over medium to full body, below average carbonation. Very nice and interesting to taste the results of proper ageing in a virgin American oak barrel.

Bottle. Color: Lightly hazy red copper, thin beige head. Aroma: Peat. Strong peat. Did I already mention the peat? Taste: Malty, very strong peat, oak wood, sweetish, hints of vanilla. Hoppy, moderate bitter background. Earthy. Ash. Heavily smoked fish. Moderate to over moderqte sweet. Over medium body, just below average carbonation. You have to be a strong peat lover to like this beer. Malcroys (Kevin de Vos) knows what he's doing, so warnings are placed on the website and on the label. Luckily I am a peat lover. Loved the 'normal' Fossil Fuel but this one is great too. Thanks for brewing, Kevin!

Imperial stout flavoured with the fragrant exotic palo santo wood, brewed in the kettles of Malcroys with the help of that other innovative microbrewery in Kontich (near Antwerp), Tall Poppy – one could wonder why these guys, brewing in the same progressive ‘craft’ vein at a distance of about one mile from each other, do not produce collabs more often… At LIBF. Open but dense and creamy, mocha-beige ring of foam on a black beer with hazy burgundy glow. Intense and perfumey bouquet of indeed strong palo santo (reminiscent of cinnamon, marzipan and coconut), cocoa, molten mocha ice cream, latté macchiato, chocolate liqueur, almond, bayleaf, brown rum, candied dates, toffee, a whiff of liquorice and a background touch of Antwerpian ‘Wycam’s Borstbollen’ (which I assume is just that wonderful palo santo again, returning in altered form). Sweet but not overly cloying, supple onset with impressions of candied date, candied pear and almond, softly carbonated and very slick and oily, with full body though not so syrupy that it hinders drinkability; cocoa and mocha flavours stick to a pecan-nutty, dark-chocolatey, toffeeish maltiness. Some toasty bitterness luckily appears, but remains limited and subtle, so that the whole does not evolve into full-fledged roastiness; instead the palo santo graces this big and bold stout with elegant, perfumey, alluringly sweet and spicy aromas shifting between marzipan or tonka over coconut to eucalyptus or even vague patchouli. The hops remain implied but fulfil a structurally vital role in the background, while a rum-like alcohol glow only brightens the aromas without scorching them. Very postmodern ‘impy’ with a special ingredient: a popular choice in craft beer circles, but also very well-executed from a technical viewpoint, combining power with elegance. Truly beautiful stout – collabs rarely convince me, but this is one of those rare cases where the sum of one and one is indeed three. I would love to revisit this one at home, for quieter contemplation.