7.1/10
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Appearance 6
Aroma 7.5
Flavor 7
Texture 7
Overall 7.5
330ml bottle. Quasi black colour with small, creamy, half-way lasting, minimally lacing, dark beige to tan head. Sweet-ish, caramel malty and dark malty as well as slightly roasty and chocolately, dark malty aroma, notes of caramel, dark caramel, malt lozenge, some treacle, toffee, hints of cocoa, tar, molasses, whiffs of burnt coffee. Taste is bitter hoppy as well as bitter, roasty, minimally ashy, dark malty, slightly chocolately, dark malty and slightly sweet, caramel malty, hints of toffee, dark caramel, a touch of burnt coffee, some tar; some herbal, hoppy bitterness throughout, the herbal aspects become more present in the finish as the malty flavours fade out on a more abrupt trajectory.
Slightly creamy texture, smooth and soft, minimally cloying, simultaneously slightly dry palate, medium, dense, mildly prickly carbonation.
Quite some malty flavours around, a tad disharmonious in parts, overall rather bitter; or better: the bitter hoppy counterpart works somehow from the outside, seperated from the malt flavours as a whole, not from within, immediately conneced to every single malty aspect. A bit of the old school, somehow a bit British as well - not bad, not top-notch.