Bottle. Dark brown/black with a hint of red. Medium tan head. Aroma is of chocolate and coffee, nice and roasty. Flavor is of chocolate again, coffee, roastiness, a nice bit of bitterness to keep it crisp. Finishes with the bitterness hanging on. Very good.

Bottle at home Big thanks to Fin for this in my Cropredy Box ... Deep red black ... sweet roast malts nose quite a bot of chcocolate ... bit over fizzy ... but wonderful flavour ... huge amount of chocolate ... Nice deep roast malts ... low bitterness ... wonderfulyl complex... This is a stunner.

Tasting notes from Hook Norton Brewery and Banbury beer festival. Dark reddish brown with a beige head. Caramel, roast, fruit, and nut aroma notes. Chocolate, blackberry, and roast malt flavour. Mild bitterness kicking in at the end.

Bottle from Waitrose, Ramsgate. Poured a very dark brown almost black. Gorgeous aroma of chocolate and vanilla. Coffee and even more chocolate in the flavour. This is a very nice stout, hard to find fault.

Bottle, from Waitrose in Witney. Deep brown, cap of light tan head. Cheerios® and sweetened coffee aroma, a little chocolate chip cookie. Toasty dry chocolate flavor with a flinty mineral edge. Fairly light body but some nice medicinal chewiness. Compared to the pasturized version, this has a ton more life and interest. Given how funky and prone to wander off into sour-land the Hook Norton yeast is, I’d be willing to bet that this is sterile filtered and reseeded with another yeast for bottle conditioning. Works though, and this is a rather nice stout.