8.1/10
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Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 8.5
Got in a trade with The-Adjunct-Hippie. 12 ounce bottle into snifter, no bottle dating. Pours opaque dark brown/black color with a 1 finger dense khaki head with great retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Nice dense spotty soapy lacing clings around the glass, with a moderate amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Fantastic appearance. Aromas of big nutty dark roasted coffee, dark chocolate, cocoa, caramel, molasses, toasted dark bread, herbal, pepper, and pine; with lighter notes of vanilla, smoke, charcoal, raisin, cherry, fig, leather, tobacco, and roast/toast/smokey earthiness. Damn nice aromas with great balance and complexity of black/roast/bready malts, coffee, and light-moderate earthy hop notes; with great strength. Taste of big nutty dark roasted coffee, dark chocolate, cocoa, caramel, molasses, toasted dark bread, herbal, pepper, and pine; with lighter notes of vanilla, smoke, charcoal, raisin, cherry, fig, leather, tobacco, and roast/toast/smokey earthiness. Moderate roast/char and herbal/piney/peppery hop bitterness on the finish. Lingering notes of nutty coffee, dark chocolate, cocoa, caramel, molasses, toasted dark bread, vanilla, smoke, charcoal, dark fruit, herbal, pepper, pine, and roast/toast/smokey earthiness on the finish for a while. Awesome complexity, robustness, and balance of black/roast/bready malts, coffee, and light-moderate earthy hop flavors; with a nice roast/hop bitter/sweet balance, and zero acrid/astringent flavors after the finish. Lightly increasing dryness from hop/char bitterness. Medium carbonation and medium-full body; with a very smooth, creamy/bready/grainy, and fairly sticky/chalky balanced mouthfeel that is great. Zero warming alcohol for 9.5%. Overall this is an awesome Russian imperial coffee stout! All around great complexity, robustness, and balance of black/roast/bready malts, coffee, and light-moderate earthy hop flavors; very smooth and dangerously easy to sip on for the ABV; despite the increasingly bitter/drying finish. Very rich with balanced nutty/fruity coffee and black/roasted malt complexity; with a nice earthy/piney hop presence. A really enjoyable offering, and spot on style example.
Tried
from Bottle
on 31 Oct 2017
at 19:33