Bottle from Beerlovers. Very dark brown color with medium beige head. Aroma of roasted malt, coffee. Coffee, dark chocolate, wood in taste. Good.

Bottle at Bolime tasting 3/2016. Unfortunately this soured and nothing is left of the deScriptors in commercial deScription. Not entirely bad, but not great either - just another unintentional sour.

Bottle 330ml. @ home. [ As Hardknott Rhetoric #2 ].[ Trade by madmitch76 ]. Clear dark dark brown color with a small, frothy - fizzy, fair lacing, mostly diminishing, beige head. Aroma is moderate to heavy malty, roasted, chocolate, dark chocolate, cherry, cherry stone - wood, light marzipan. Flavor is moderate to heavy sweet and bitter with a long duration, cherry stone - wood, roasted, chocolate, wood, dark malt, cherry - marzipan. Body is medium to full, texture is oily, carbonation is soft. [20140404]

Cask at the bow bar... Dark brown.. Soft sweet chocolate roast malts nose... Dark chocolate roast.. Dark chocolate... Soft chocolate roast.. Light smoke..

Bottle at home. Pours clear golden amber, nose is grapefruit, toffee, taste is dry, sweet, light fruit.

Cask at the bow bar. Pours black, nose is chocolate, roasted, light smoke, salty, taste is similar, a little thin.

Aroma is floral and hoppy with a touch of caramel. Nice taste. The fruity caramel sweetness balances well against the dryness of the hop.

Bottled (AbM). Hazy yellowish golden colour with a small foamy white head. Aroma is herbal, grassy, some zest and mild wheatlike notes. Flavour is mild acidic wood, some zest, citrus, earth, coriander and mild other spices too.

Bottled (backlog). Hazy orangeish amber colour with a small slightly off-white head. Aroma is fruity, floral, nectary and mildly honeyish with some bready and toffeeish malts as well. Flavour is very similar in a good balance. Quite sweet overall, but also has a nice mellow bitterness to it.

Crafty interpretation of English dark mild at 8.1% - referring to the fact that originally, ’mild ale’ was not synonymous with low alcohol ale, but with fresh ale as opposed to old ale; in a modern day ’beer geek’ context, I guess this could be described as an ’imperial mild’... Remarkably loose, irregular, thin, greyish white head retaining only on the edges, colour is a beautiful brownish ’deep purple’, quadrupel-like and clear, fitting perfectly for this time of the year. Aroma of overripe pear, soft bourbon, milk chocolate, a lot of FFF (freshly fermented farmland - read ’manure’), hazelnuts, damp forest floor, mouldy orange, Rioja wine, raisins, butterscotch, stewed beef - in all, richer and more complex than usual for a dark mild, with the aromas being pushed forward by the alcohol. Clean, soft onset of candied fig and cherry sweetness with elderberry sourishness and light beefy umami, soft carbo, very smooth and lean body, emphatic caramel maltiness, nutty and a tad chocolatey too, leaving a resiny coating of ’bittersweetness’; finishes with well-positioned earthy and herbal hop bitterness nicely balancing the caramel sweetness. Flavours of this earthy hop bitterness and bittersweet toasted malts in the end are reinforced by a glow of warming, port-like alcohol. If I had to taste this blind, I would never have associated it with mild ale, this is in fact much closer to an old ale - but again, in the modern sense of the word. Too bad for the strong manure-like odour, but this fades away after a while and in the mouth, this beer shows dignity and balance so in the end, I would still recommend it, if only for the unusual premise.