12oz bottle. Deep dark pour, dark tan head. Huge roasty, caramel, fruity aroma, very rich. Big dark fruit flavor, very big rich chocolatly with an alcohol punch at the end, quite good.

Almost black pour with a reddish brown head. Nice aroma of sweet fruits, malt. Flavor is sweet with a bit of a dry finish. Alcohol is present especially as it warms. Pretty good stuff.

Getting notebook online. Bottle, Batch 3. Pours a rich black, slight brown head. Cherry and prunes on the nose. Flavors include cherry, chocolate, spiced rum. Very smooth mouthfeel, alcohol strong on the palate. Tasty strong IS

Bottle at EBF. Black, fizzy brown head. Deep salty liquorice, little tarry aroma. Intensive liquorice, sweet malty and tarry flavor. Warming liquorice and pepper in the finish. Full bodied, smooth low carbonation. A liquorice bomb, great!

Bottle from the November 2006 batch. Strong roast malt aroma, blended with caramelized sugars and something strongly dusty. Pours the darkest brown, downright black in the glass with brown highlights at the edges. Even in a broad sniter, puts up a finger of coffee-brown head. More roast malt complexity in the aroma. Raisins and other dark fruits are there. <br /><br /> The first sip is mouthcoating, dominated by bourbon and thick, sweet caramel. The finish turns really buttery, like movie theater popcorn or butterscotch brandy. By the fourth sip, the booze is beginning to hit me, the caramel is becoming cloying, and the flavor of bitter melons is accumulating in the beer. I continue, but after about 4 oz desist. Mephistopheles has bested me in this round. <br /><br /> Yet for what I paid for this, I am unwilling to throw it out. So I cover the mouth of the snifter and let it sit. In the morning, at a cool room temperature, the aroma components are more present in the flavor; there’s a lot more roast malt, raisins, and dark fruit now. The thickness, alcohol, and caramel are still there, and again by about four sips, I have to stop. My palate is choked by the now-dusty finish. In small quantities (a teaspoon or so) it is delicious, yet by the fourth sip while I have to suppress the gag reflex to swallow. Here we have a beer that is actually not even a sipper. And I’m still unwilling to pour it out. <br /><br /> Afternoon. Mephistopheles is mocking me from under its shroud of Press ’n’ Seal. Unwrap. Now familiar aromas and dark fruits and butterscotch. A day out of the bottle, it has mellowed considerably. Front now vinous, smoked raisins, finish still caramel, butter, and dust, with accumulating warmth and bitterness. It can be savored in the mouth indefinitely, but swallowing is still an act of will. I’m going to make onion soup this evening, and perhaps Mephisto might do an excellent job of deglazing the stock pot, but it’s an untried quantity, who knows how well this devil cooks up, and if it cooks up badly, I will have ruined my entire week’s worth of lunch. <br /><br /> This is only going to end by taking it like a man. There’s perhaps 6 oz of liquid and two beers’ worth of alcohol left in the snifter. Bottoms up. Goes down hot and vinous, leaves a taste of cold coffee grounds in my mouth. I reel slightly, but 24 hours after opening Mephisto, I have earned a pyrrhic victory.