Pours deep opaque darkness with nice mocha chocolate head. The modestly strong aroma has dark chocolate, molasses, caramel, a bit of burnt malts and black licorice. The taste is smooth and velvety with dark chocolate, some burnt malts and molasses moving into some mild hop bitterness mixing with rich dark fruity esters. I get some black licorice into the finish to go along with lingering dark chocolate velvety goodness.

Pours deep darkness. My pour ended up with an impressive mocha colored mild shake head. The aroma is moderate in strength with roast, chocolate, cedar and faint dark fruity goodness. I get a wafer thin layer of spicy hops deep in the background. The taste begins with an impressive silky mouthfeel ushering in deep velvety dark chocolate which is followed by dark roastiness to modestly burnt malts. The burnt malts may also be a light amount of dark roasted coffee. By midway a full cedar note joins in that isn’t too bright and compliments nicely and adds a hint of a dark toasted wheat bread sensation. I’m told this beer has hops. My senses rarely pick up on anything less than 70 IBUs. I’m pretty sure I’m getting a mild bite of hop bitterness coming from just a sense of spicy hops. The smooth dark chocolate, smooth cedar and mild burnt notes mask most of the hops for my palate. It ends with each note being sustained deep into the after taste. Twenty minutes later I was still tasting yummy rich dark chocolate and a sense of both cedar and dark roasted coffee. Wow!

0.75L bottle pours deep mahogany with clear amber to rose edges and full tan head. The initial aroma as the pours ends is a pulse of cherries. Upon further inspection I get more cherries, faint dark grape jam mixing with a growing cornucopia of malts like biscuit, melanoidin, caramunich, toffee and other notes I can’t put my finger on . . . maybe chicory too. The taste starts smooth and sweet moving toward increasing levels of roasted maltiness. But first I get cherries and toffee mixing with a brief pulse of dark grape jam. Then an array of malts descend on the palate jabbing away with toffee, biscuit, melanoidin, more toffee and malt roastiness. Beyond midway coffee and chicory goodness enter and help bring the dark fruitiness and malts toward the finish. It ends with chocolate, chicory, faint dark roasted coffee beans, figs, cherries, toffee and mildly drying roasted malts. This brew has tons and tons of flavor and is a bit much for one person (me) to finish off a big bottle.

On cask at Dunedin’s 1st Annual Hoppy Endings. Pours copper with a slight haze and nice white head. It has a modest aroma emitting a little bit of citrus, pine, grassiness, some sweet crystal malts and a little bit of cedar twang right at the end of the draw. The cask pour and conditioning has created a silky smooth mouth feel that coats every crevice with flavor. I get malts and sweetness that quickly moves into cedar and grassy resiny hops. It thickens a bit about midway and eases into the finish with a very pleasing balance between the malts and hop bitterness to go along with an undercurrent of cedar. A sense of spicy hops and smooth malt covered cedar linger into the after taste.