Mikkeller 黑 / Black

Mikkeller
Brewed at De Proefbrouwerij
Style: Imperial Stout
Copenhagen V, Denmark

12.7 oz bottle. Not quite black with some oily tan bubbles and lacy swirls. Nose is chocolate, soy, molasses and brandied raisin. Medium body with a tingle. Taste is chocolate syrup, dates, Kahlua and licorice; quite sweet. Finishes with tobacco, tar and bitter burnt sugar. Could be exceptional with five more years in the cellar.

Oh, this is a monstrosity. Pure black nectar with a shy pancake head that finally amounts to something half way through the pour. It just sits there, the whole session. Strong aromas of bitter cocoa, roasted coffee bean, leather, and molasses. Full nectar like pudding on the palate with superb carbonation for something so dense. Huge chocolate malt backbone is sliced and diced with surgical precision by a sharp aspirin hop component. The whole sip is a battle zone thrashing and cutting between malt and hop. The flavor is intense and moderately sweet with huge bittering to balance. The alcohol is high and mighty yielding crazy mental abstractions from thought to sip. The finish is as memorable as your fist broken limb or ER suture. Wow! This one gets my Trump card.

Bottle sampled at West Lake View tasting. Pours a black color with a tan head. Nose is chocolate with lots of coffee, roasted malts, and booze. Chocolate sweet flavors with all that alcohol. Anise, charred malts, and dried fruit. The alcohol and astringency is a bit overbearing here. So hot ... this one needs four years or more before it becomes great.

Thanks to Beerlando for this great beer. Pours a dark mahoganey with thin tan head. Pungent sweet malt, liquor, smoke and sugar aroma. Taste is liqorice, sweet malt, burnt wood, roasted grain. Finishes with a nice roastiness. Really strong, some aging might be needed to cool it down a little. Really good.

375 mL bottle, corked and caged, purchased from Chuck’s Liquor in Bowling Green. Poured a jet black color with a two finger brown head that quickly dissipated. The aroma was alcohol, roasted malt and a bit of coffee. The flavor was terrible. A lot of tobacco and roasted malt was present, with a huge alcohol bite, and a messy, sweet finish. There was absolutely nothing that I enjoyed about the flavor of this beer. Overall I was very disappointed.

Black/darkest brown, small tan head. Big time licorice, huge roasty bittersweet malt, light coffee, alcohol, sugar. Body is a medium/full, no doubt lightened a bit by the beet sugar, soft carbonation. Very nice, could use more time though. From notes.

375 ml bottle. Pitch black. Medium-sized beige fine-laced head. Motor oil. Papery and tight. Clean metallic hop aromas. Clean and nicely balanced. Intensely flavourful. Sweet and interestingly roasted. Wonderfully hopped. I love this. Very sweet flavours that are balanced by sharp hops that don’t punch you directly in the face, like in many of their other beers.

[At Carlsens with Hans Ole.] Totally black with fluffy coffeehead. Fat aroma of coffee, sugar, burntness, chocolate and heavy alcohol. Flavor of the fattest sweetness ever, oil, complex hops, dried fruits, and more notes than ever before noticed. All ending up very bitter. What a miracle!