Black. Malty, clean dry & bitter. Very well balanced. .....................

Deep red, vinuos, hoppy and enormously complex with notes of vanilla and maple syrup. One of my all time favourites!!

Black. I mean black hole black. Vodka nose, but after that you forget that it is ridiculously strong. Tons of malt. Roasty and pappery flavour. Increadibly balanced. Hats off!

An unbelievably good beer. I was wary, but whoa - this really does taste like beer and is very drinkable and enjoyable. The aroma contained notes of dark fruits (dates, plums) but also tobacco, vanilla, and wine. The flavor was similar - and highly comparable to a port wine, except with a much drier finish that makes it much much more enjoyable than some cloying ports. This beer makes me want to throw my entire collection of port and madeira and replace it with this - the first truly high powered sipping beer that you can savor all the way through. Slight head that dissipated quickly - but a definite mild carbonation. Very black in color. Main drawback - a beer this huge should come in 9oz bottles. One 12oz of this will knock you back. Draught addendum - still everything I remember it as. Rich and complex with vanilla and pipe tobacco notes. Draught version is really no different than bottled - for one, it is not carbonated. Update for the 2003 version - I assume its the new 18.8% 2003 beer as it contains no reference to Vim and Vigor on the label at all. My notes: Room temp from a wine glass. This is not similar to the original 18% beer, it still has many of the sweet roasted malt overtones but is markedly less sweet, with a new licorice flavor dominating up front. Licorice and maple are present in the nose. The beer is overall less roundly sweet than the original 18% beer and serves less well as a replacement to port/dessert wine. Both stronger bitterness and alcohol reduce the sweet front of the beer. Alcohol flavor and burn rise more strongly from the middle and end of the palate, making for an overall less savorable drink. Very dark brown color, near opaque with a thin brown head that fades to nothing, leaving only small dots for lace. Beer is more carbonated than I remember. I am not changing the rating numbers due to my love of the original beer, but I rated the new one to a total of 3.4 out of 5.