Bright gold pour. Sweet hop and spice flavor. Full flavor, not halfway made. Delicious and satisfying.

The barrel aged version of the Spencer monks' trappist stout, initially created for Yankee Spirits and bottled in 75 cl bottles (like their other barrel aged beers - which are all but impossible to find in Europe, sadly); now also available in 33 cl bottles with wider distribution, albeit at a considerably higher ABV than shown above, namely 11.3% - I assume this warrants an altogether different entry on this site, but I leave that to the admins and for convenience, park my rating of such a 33 cl bottle here. Several specialist beer shops had limited quantities of this lately, I got a few from an online shop with only trappist products (not only beer), located in Aarschot northeast of Leuven. Huge head development upon pouring - in fact difficult to pour normally without filling most of the glass in instants; the head, nicely pale brownish-beige in colour, is very regularly shaped, laces in a thick membrane around the edge, crackles and puffs up like a pillow, remaining very thick and closed for a long time on an ink black beer with very thin, hazy burgundy edges when held under bright light. Intense aroma - even though initially muffled by that thick layer of foam - of pure black chocolate bars, fresh oak wood including that typical vanilla-ish aspect, molasses, coffee cream, hot espresso, pear, bourbon of course but not too much 'in your face', stewed dark plums, hints of dry clay, clove, cocoa powder, leftover cake dough, dried porcini, dusty old pecan nuts, papier maché, fresh paint, very vague and volatile touch of farmland somewhere. Dark-fruity onset, ripe blackberries, figs, blue plums and pear, sweetish with a very thin umami lacing of dried porcini, stingy carbonation but small-bubbled enough not to disturb, yet effectuating quite some underlying minerality; dim sourish streak of roasted grains, running under a thick layer of hard caramel-, pecan nut- and pure chocolate-like malts, sweetish but not too much so (and not going all toffee-like as is so often the case in strong stouts these days). From the middle onwards, a firm black coffee-like roasted bitterness develops, seemingly more so than in the regular version (though I must admit it has been years since I had that one), nicely lining the mouth cavity. This bitterness is somewhat mitigated by the wood, adding drying tannins and that lovely, fresh oak wood aspect reminiscent of vanilla; minerally and clay-like accents accompany a long, hot finish, turning quite boozy in the end with bittersweet, very bourbon-like effect, the bitterness of course provided by that roastedness but also by a confident dosage of spicy hops. Bitter black chocolate, coffee and hot bourbon linger for minutes on end. Wow, this is even more powerful and intense than I was expecting; I remember having described the regular as a typical 'Belgian style imperial stout' (if such a concept can be thought of - but see e.g. Ellezelloise's Hercule for a starting point), but this one goes all U.S. style, albeit in the old school way that was popular ten to twenty years ago (and beyond), with a strong roasted bitterness many young geeks today possibly find too much. I have been annoyed by the blatant sweetness in many U.S. style strong stouts these days and I consider this 'blast of the past', at least stylewise, a very welcoming distraction - this flavour brings back many fond memories of legendary American stouts I (often painstakingly) acquired and enjoyed years ago. Heck, if this was released fifteen years ago, I'm sure it would have been an instant whale - in the vein of BCBS, Founders' KBS or Bell's Black Note. I have expressed my belief in these American trappist monks almost from the start and I maintain that of all those new trappist breweries, a small 'wave' of them having been activated in the past two decades under influence of the global beer revolution, it is them who have - quite rapidly - developed their own, interesting idiom, increasingly drawing from U.S. craft beer and decreasingly from the Belgian trappist ale traditions. I am flabbergastered - and so happy to have another bottle of this for ageing, I cannot wait what this will become in a year or more from now. Beautiful stout, would have been a 4.5/5 for me if it had been a little less boozy, but in any case: the Spencer monks be praised!