Mikkeller 黑 / Black

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

12.7oz bottle, best before 12/12/2017. Pours a pitch black body with a thin, dark brown head that really doesn’t qualify as a head, but leaves a lot of surface swirls and lacing on the glass. Very nice. Wow...intense aroma. First whiff is straight booze, but after the initial punch in the face, it smells quite nice. Abundance of extremely dark coffee. Lots of dark, bittersweet chocolate and roasted malts. Big and sweet caramels, licorice, piney hops, oranges, and dark fruits. Just an onslaught of aromas....and flavor! Initially a sweet booze clears the senses. Very sweet malts and lots of fruit at first. Big licorice and cane sugar sweetness with bold dark fruits and orangey citrus. Did I mention it was sweet? After the initial blitz of flavor, the sweetness grows even more! But to really mess with the palate, the darkest and blackest burnt coffee taste comes in during the middle. Its moderate to light and seems to be in the background of all the flavors, but the insanely dark coffee flavor is hard to ignore. Lots of dark, bittersweet chocolate accompanies the sweet maltiness and coffee. I can’t forget to mention the decisive hop bitterness balancing everything out. All of these flavors then combine into one elephantine finish. Its a log-jam and it seems like the flavors just continue to grow. After slowly drying, the flavors start to mellow and the aftertaste is mostly that insanely dark coffee with a nice amount of bitterness and a candy, malty, fruity booze flavor. The palate is medium to full, silky, and flat. Overall, I love over the top stouts like this. I can easily see why people hate these type of beers, but I think they’re remarkable. The booze is clearly evident, but never becomes too hot to handle. IMO, this is incredibly well balanced for such a complex creation. Woh...

The Surgeon General’s Warning is not enough!! Appearance: Absorbs light like a black hole; pours like Sarah Palin’s motor oil Aroma: "It’s burning my eyes!"; clears the sinuses better than Afrin. Palate: "it cleared up this cough I’ve had for two years"; Flavor: like when you leave the espresso pot on the burner too long, then forget to add sugar; I timed the finish at 23 minutes, but one taster claimed he could still taste it the next day at work.

Pours pitch black with a foamy chocolate colored head that settles into a lasting lacing. Roasted malty aroma with chocolate, oatmeal, toffee, dark fruit, spice, alcohol, hops and candi sugar notes. Very complex with a nice roasted coffe maltiness, sweet dark chocolate, caramel, toffee, and alcohol warmth. The ABV is noticeable but pretty well masked considering it’s strength.

12.7oz. bottle, with thanks to TheEpeeist from a trade back in January 2009. Pours dark black with a thin head of larger and loose bubbles. Aroma is ripe dark fruits, chocolate, and some more alcohol port/cordial aromas as well. Flavor starts with dark candied fruit sweetness and some chocolate, then transitions fairly quickly into more burnt roast malts on the finish. The sweet, then burnt thing with a more alcoholic finish is weird. This one just didn’t work too well for me, but thanks again Chris!

Bottle. Pours black with a really dark head. Smells of chocolate and roasted barley. Complex taste with notes of chocolate and roasted barley, alcohol is quite present, it is a little over powering for me. A little much for me, but I can still enjoy it.

(bottle, thanks OSLO!) Pours black with a tan head. Aromas of chocolate, roasted malt, prune, and raisin. In the very beginning I could smell the asphalt that others have noted as well, but the smell disappeared for me as the beer warmed. The taste, when cold is very sweet, with a lot of chocolate. This taste is good enough, but the finish is just a bracing blast of green pepper, harsh charred malt, and alcohol. This god awful finish only intensifies as the beer warms, and the alcohol begins to dominate every little thing that was remotely good about the beer. If you let this thing warm for more than ten minutes, all I can say is good luck. I know OSLO drank this for a longer time than I, so I’m glad I finished it fairly quickly, and was not subjected to the alcohol bomb it becomes. This is just awful.

Sampled at EBF2008. Pours a pitchblack beer with a chocolatebrown head. The aromna is soft roasted malts, coffee, licorice and notes of alcohol. The flavor is alcohol and roasted malts. The mouthfeel is bold and sharp from the alcohol. Overall this beer has a nice aroma, but in the flavor and the mouthfeel the alcohol is a bit overpowering.

12.7 oz bottle: Aroma is wonderful. Roasted malt, almost a wine like quality to it, caramel, chocolate, lots and lots of dark fruit, and somewhat of a burn characteristic. Pours a pitch black with a medium sized tan head that lingers around for a while. Taste is deep dark malt characteristics, chocolate, a tobacco taste, somewhat sweet, and very layered. Palate is like I said in the taste layers. On the initial sip its alcohol up front and a smokiness, then forms into a malt characteristic, then you get the chocolate, and a aftertaste of a lingering dark fruit with roasted malt . Overall, this is quite complex and a top notch Imperial Stout in my honest opinion. Cheers!