Can, 2020 edition, from the brewery. Pours opaque dark brown with large spongy dark beige head, mocha-rum aroma, low carbonation, sweet mocha taste with rum and woodsy undertones, smooth body, long sweet finish. A bit sticky sweet.

Can, from the brewery. Pours faintly cloudy golden with frothy whitish head, light resin aroma, adequate carbonation, medium bitter faintly citrusy resin taste, smooth body, long finish. Well balanced American IPA.

Draught at BGH: pours orange gold with a white head. Aroma is spicy, lightly yeasty, slight fruitiness. Taste is spicy, nice rye notes. Not bad.

On tap at the Jeffrey. Pours hazy orange. Orange juice, sweet, tangerine, grapefruit. Good body. Decent.

Foreign stout from the Bronx, New York; can from Beerdome. Thinnish, yellow-beige, mousy, open head, lacing in patches and with an intricate 'land map' pattern in the middle; black robe with very thin mahogany edges. Aroma of bitter chocolate, dry beef stock cubes, lots of blood-like iron, cold coffee, extinguished bonfire, Cuban cigars, dry tea bags, wet leather, dried blackberries, old vanilla beans, hard caramel, black bean sauce, bay leaf. Restrainedly sweetish onset, outspoken beef stock cube-like umami though, hints of dried fig and blackberry, medium carbonated with a very smooth, slick, oily body. Lots of haemoglobin-like 'natural iron' accompany a hard-caramelly and walnutty malt profile that develops considerable coffee-ish roasted bitterness in the end, amplified by a peppery hop kick. Alcohol provides finishing warmth, but not too strongly so. Feels more dry and 'metallic' (but in a good way, if you see what I mean) than a classic foreign stout would, this one seems to hold the middle between traditional dry easily drinkable, very agreeable stout with an old-fashioned, roasty profile. We need more stouts like this again in this world.

Fairly hazy golden and raw honey coloured boy with a thinnish, relatively fast-dying and soapy white head, about a centimetre tall. Aroma of citrus, hey, grass, flowers, light grain, a dash of coriander seed and some more light tea notes with chamomile and even some jasmine blossoms arising as well - nice and deep in the floral department. Light to Medium-bodied; Strong grassy and herbal notes show at first with a lot of dry floral and perfumey characteristics that show some light hop bitterness, but a more herbal and floral bite that has a hint of sugars from caster sugar and only a light dose of alcohol noticeable at the very end - this is way more dry than anything else. Aftertaste is dry, herbal, grassy and very flavourful with a lot of rich notes that make this saison hit the expected characteristics, but also some additional dry hopping notes show well in the nose and capitalise towards the end with some prolonged bitterness from the hops and a soft, but noticeable sweetness at the tail end. Overall, a very nice saison that hits the right notes and finishes off very nicely with a dry, floral and grassy bite that make this one live long, but show almost exactly what you'd expect from a fresh saison made here in America! I sampled this sixteen ounce, pint-sized can, purchased from Joe Canal's in Lawrenceville, New Jersey on 06-January-2020 for US$3,99 sampled at my house here in Washington on 17-May-2020.

473ml can. Jet black colour with slightly late awakening, small to average, frothy, moderately lasting, minimally lacing, tan head. Roasty, slightly chocolately, dark malty aroma, notes of cocoa, some coffee, espresso, a touch of sugared espresso. Taste is minimally grainy, roasty, chocolately dark malty, notes of espresso, coffee, some cocoa, a touch of sweetened coffee, roasted coffee beans, a touch of rye bread, bitter roasty and bitter hoppy counterpart. Oily to viscous texture, smooth, soft, silky and minimally cloying palate, very fine, efficacious carbonation, lingering, bitter, roasty finish. Pretty good.

25th April 2020
Can. Light haze on this gold beer, small bubbly off white head. Palate is light, minerally crisp and fairly dry. Thin malts barely abate the hop bitterness. Crisp but bitterish citrus and citric peel. Spicy bitter grapefruit and thin orange peel. Thin dry spicy bitter finish. Somewhat thin and aggressive but not hating this. Some passion fruit.

Beer #1 of 17 (8 beers on either side of #8000 plus the magic 8000th itself) Canned on 13-November-2017 // Purchased on 02-December-2017 // Sampled 15-April-2020 Deep dark, almost perfectly pitch black coloured body that seems to be 'void of light' with a sliver of light going through the sides when the glass is tilted, with a two to three centimetre tall light brown head that fades relatively quickly, especially for the age of this one and the pressure in the can when it was cracked. Aroma of soy sauce, meat, mushrooms, roasted malt, burnt coffee, deep dark chocolates, some pitted fruits and plums and finished off with a heavy dose of oatmeals. Medium-bodied; Strong soy sauce and meaty components with the oatmeal are by far the strongest with some sweetness from chocolate and plums and prunes with a dose of a creamy or lactose note showing some more sweet stouty side of things, but the bitterness and pungency from the export/foreign side of the house is way stronger. Aftertaste shows the deep and robust notes with the meaty and umami flavours coming out by far the strongest with a lot of alcohol and pungency towards the end that does highlight the smoked peat, burnt malts and roasted coffee flavours. Overall, a deep and strong beer (as expected) with a pungency, astringency and range of flavours that wasn't the best for the style or after this period in a can. Not a bad beer, but as far as foreign stouts, this was ho-hum, which is slightly sad, as this was the first beer of my 8000th celebration and started on a bad note. I can only get better from here. I sampled this sixteen ounce can, purchased from Milk & Hops in New York (9th and Broadway, now defunct, I believe), New York on 02-December-2017 for US$3,99 sampled at my house in Washington on 15-April-2020, as Beer #1 (of 17) of the 8000th Beer Celebration!