bottle, bought from mikkeller webshop. pours dark brown, nearly no head. One of the darkest barley wine I have ever seen, color is similar to a dark quad. looks mean for a barleywine. sweet malts, sweet almonds in the aroma. almonds almost makes it a bit perfumey. can't really sense barrel or booze in the aroma, but then.. some of what I think is almonds and malts could be whiskey. faint notes similar to a quad, so some extra complexity hidden under the more ordinary barleywine aroma. flavor is very sweet, almonds and roasted malts, also very strong, but does not taste like alc. nice flavor. booze is now very easy to detect and adds character and rounds off the malts, some woody bitterness towards the end. Somehow the almonds doesn't manage to fit in super nicely, they add a sort of weird sweetness i think. Nice barley wine, a bit untaditional both color and almonds, almonds and booze both add sweetness, but not really a sweetness that go well with the sweet malts. cocoa is either fairly well hidden or blends in very well. I didn't notice.

Bottle from mikkeller shop. not as powerful as usual (for blackout) roasted malts and honey aroma. flavor is roasted malts, salty wood (weird when this is the non-barrel aged version) honey, coffee bitterness. Quite tasty, the honey works very well in the flavor profile, still, not one of the best from blackout. coffee is present, especially towards the end. quite well rounded too.

My first blackout beer that is not pitch black. decent ipa aroma, good levels of pine and hops, yeast, aroma is fat and solid as mostly only a dipa can be, not overly sweet so not towards barley wine. Flavor is very bitter hoppy but at the same time tempered with oats (i think, or wheat) it has this creamy thing going on that dampens things down a bit. ending is particularly not very bitter but quite flavorful. It is a fair NEIPA, but I feel like it didn't really gain much by being a DIPA, the flavor profile could have been hit with a normal NEIPA i think. The high ABV and double'ness did not make the beer bad though, everything works well together and makes the beer a treat.

Pours extremely dark, black, with a fine dark brown head. Aroma has chocolate, coconut and roasted malts, also notes from the booze barrelling. Flavor has a lot of coconut, good dose of roasted malts, an almost acidic or citrussy note - very faint, could be coconuts - is probably coconut. I can't really find any haelnut in there, but then hazelnut doesn't taste of much so would likely not add a flavor of its own. Also not much chocolate going on. The abv. is warming. I think I can taste the four roses. Pretty solid imp. stout from blackout, but not one of their very best. Still absolutely very good and well worth a try.

pitch black, practically no head. Honey is clearly the first thing i notice in the aroma, tons of honey, then roasted malts , woody notes and boozy notes.Don't recall having tasted an imperial stout with this much honey aroma. Blind smelling this one, I'm sure 10 out of 10 would guess mead. Flavor is more balanced, honey is just a small part of the flavor profile which is quite heavy in cognaq and bourbon, wood and tons of hard roasted malts. then the honey sweetness and a nice coffee bitterness.On second sips i still find the honey a bit too strong in this one, but it is super delicious as practically everything black from blackout I have tasted. The bitterness towards the end is almost a bit burned caramelly like - or charred woody - but in a more old-cognaq barrel way. the barrelling relly does something to the complexity of this one.. I end up at 3.8 but somehow I think it deserves 3.9 or 4 on a number scale.

bottle. pitch dark, dark brown smooth head. Aroma is dominated by dark roasted malts and coffee. Flavor has some coconut (not the sweet part) wood. also sweet licorice. I can't find cognac specifically, but some booze probably in the very complex and quite well balanced yet very strong flavor. Coffee works very well in this one, not being too much, but adding bitterness and complexity. Yet again a great black beer from blackout.