Bos Solar Eclipse Imperial Stout

Formerly brewed at Bos Brewery and Bistro
Style: Imperial Stout
Pontiac, Michigan USA

05 bottle drunk 5-06. Black body with a minimal head. Maple syrup nose with an orange Popsicle. An assload of booze here. Strong boozy flavor with chocolate, and lime. Cocoa comes out in this later. A weird thin flavor for something so strong. Green raisin and pear finish. Ap-3 ar-8 tas-6 pal-2 ov-14

Draft @ Bo’s: 2005 Vintage Opaque black with a small light brown head. Big thick sweet aroma Chocolate, alcohol (who have guessed when it is only 22 f’ing %), licorice, and light vanilla. The flavor is sweet with dark choclate maltiness and alcohol from the middle to the dry finish. Big warmth in the chest. Medium to full bodied. This is our first stop on our 5 day beer trip on the way to the Dark Lord release. It is before noon and I just had a 22% beer for breakfast. Hell yeah it’s going to be a great trip. (...and it was)

Hand bottled sample from TAR. Pours dead black with a one-finger dark brown head. Aroma of alcohol, cherries, molasses, and brown sugar. Dark chocolate, cherries, and port in the taste, along with an alcohol burn that is actually pretty mild for a 22.5 ABV brew. Burnt coffee in the finish balances the alcohol burn. Thick, viscous body with smooth carbonation.

Hand bottle sampled at the labor day gathering. Pour is deep black and viscous. Aroma is like a rough imperial stout, coffee and malt but way too harsh. Flavor is all alcohol and malt. This really comes off as just too much alcohol, which one might expect from the ABV, but other had made stronger and better.

Strong alcohol stings the nose. Once that dissipates, marzipan, nutty, chocolate and soy aromas become apparent. Opaque black body with low, dense, tight, fine-bubbled, brown head that recedes to ring. Aggressive alcohol also in the mouth. Intensely sweet dark chocolate, cherries and marzipan with some sour roasty bitterness that lasts on the tongue. Heavy, thick and syrupy full body with low carbonation. Burning alcohol in the nose and throat. It’s big, it’s strong and it’s complex, but perhaps at the expense of being drinkable. Sampled at the Michigan Brewers Guild Summer Beer Festival 2005.

Tap @ MBG, darkest oily black with only film for head. Initial aroma is nice mellowed out bourbon, followed by sweet chocolate malt, grapes, and subdued coffee. Flavor is very sweet malt, mollasses, dark grains and slight coffee finish. Very well done, could be a little less sweet, and score even higher.

Sampled draught at the Michigan Brewers Fest. Still black with a lasting brown ring, oily-looking...whiff of brandy is first in the complex aroma, followed by dark and sweet chocolates, raisins/molasses, brown sugar...later on, burnt almonds and roasted hazelnuts...amazingly creamy body doesn’t really offer much alcohol harshness until the end, which does pack a wallop though less so for me than most...lots of port, dates and raisins in the dessert-y body. This worked pretty well for me, alone in my little group that shared it, but it dropped off a bit towards the end of the tasting. Still, these guys are throwing a lot into their beers besides alcohol and I think they were at least the most interesting brewer of the fest that I experienced.

Pitch black, dark brown head. Heavily sweet, massive molasses nose. Mild sandy aspects from earthy hops try to balance is all, but the desserty oatmeal and biscuity cereals are just too strong to handle. Nutty palate, oily, tary and soy saucy. Heavy bitterness, I wonder how many IBUs this can be.. Extreme sweetness, long burning alcohol shot finish. I appreciate the efforts to create extraordinary beers, but so long that we’ll be left with oily lifeless uncarbonated palates and more artificial sweeteners than pure malt flavors, Bos won’t be up there with my favorite breweries. I am truly impressed by their head retentions considering their high alcohol levels though.. truly impressed.