Haandbryggeriet Dark Force

Initial nose is a bitter chocolate and the head is a quickly dissipating brown. Mouth feel is rough and roasty with grain flavors dominating. Mid-palate caught me off guard with a flavor I can describe as black raspberry followed by chocolate tobacco. Go figure - that’s what I wrote and I still remember being surprised. This one was a bit rough on the mouth and finished with a dry bitter chocolate. This bottle was two or three years old (I need to be more consistent about dating stuff before I put it down) so I don’t think that it is going to mellow a bunch with age. I love the story on the brewers, but with all the great Imp Stouts out there, a 3.6 or 3.7 won’t coax a return trip from me. Sorry guys.

(Draught at Olympen, Oslo, 6 Nov 2009) Black colour with frothy, pale brown head. Malty, roasted nose with notes of chocolate, espresso, dark bread, cocoa and raisins. Malty, roasted taste with chocolate, cocoa, black coffee, dark fruit and a generous cocoa bitterness in the finish. Slightly vinous with a certain alcohol bite. Some wheaty sourness lurks in the background. Full body, balanced sweetness. Complex beer. Very nice!

It poiured a bitch black liquid withy a small light brown foam that left some lacing. Smell of smoke, something burned and sour. Taste of coffey, smoke, burned, sour. Smooth and thick mouthfeel.

pours jet black with no real head. aroma is sweet malt, soy, coffee, dark fruits, bitter chocolate. drinks slightly sweet up front with burnt malts, chocolate, coffee, soy, and smoke. definatly different but pretty damn good.

Bottle from CPH. Interesting beer! Pours black with tan head. Aroma is sour cherries, yeast and licorice. Body is creamy, taste roasty malts, smokey, quite sour. Bitter finish is satisfying. Great beer.

Bottle. Black with a brown head. Roasted tones, some coffee and chocolate. Also some smokiness. Coffee and burnt tones, but also a certain sweetness. I also feel slight hints of vanilla and nuts. Pleasant bitterness. The relatively high alcohol content of 9%, I felt not at all. Fluid seemed rather dry and a bit thinner than a "normal" Imperial stout. A lot of chocolate in the aftertaste.

9th April 2008 Rich thick malt with a ninerally tone and a sry bitterish coffee finish. A shade too bitter.

THOUGHTS: I thought this would be either great or awful. It definitely wasn’t awful. A very different imperial stout, but still definitely an impy. I half expected just some sort of double weizen bock. TECHNICAL: Bottle. Poured a dark, brown that was opaque, black in the glass with a large, light brown head that kept a decent sheet. The aroma was moderate to heavy strong coffee and mocha, lighter dark chocolate, moderate hops, moderate spicy yeast, smoke, soy sauce, prune and other dark fruit and slight wheat. The initial flavor was sweet and bitter; while the finish was very sweet and rather bitter with a long duration. There was chocolate syrup, strong coffee, balancing hops that blended with the coffee bitterness, dark fruit, slight wheat, slightly minty hops, yeast, prune, black cherry and more dark fruit. The full body was sort of creamy, but also oily. Silky might best describe it, but thicker that most beers I would describe as silky. There was lightly fizzy carbonation and a light astringent, light alcoholic and ever so slight metallic finish.