7/10
—
Appearance 4
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 6
Overall 7
First edition of what is apparently intended as a yearly series, a black IPA hopped with Mistral, a new and so far largely unknown French dual-purpose hop variety. Thanks Craftmember for sharing at Loik's tasting! Coarse and irregular, mousy, rather loose and open head over very dark 'caramel brown' beer with ruddy-bronze hue, translucent and not quite 'black'. Aroma of hard butterscotch candy, nut shells, dried grapefruit peel, dried figs, nutmeg, moist peanuts. Sweetish onset, candied date and red apple notes, softish carbonation, resinous and bit glueish mouthfeel; supple caramelly malt sweetish body, nutty, evolving into a spicy finish with some soft nutmeg and wormwood bitterness, yet the nutty and 'hard caramelly' malt sweetness and slickness remains dominant - making this a porter of sorts, rather than a true black IPA. Still an enjoyable, technically very decent beer, though, it just needs (a lot) more of the Mistral, I suspect.
Tried
from Can
on 04 Jan 2019
at 19:19