(bottle, thanks to BDR for sharing this rarity!) Pours black with little to no head. The aroma is excellent, and I spent a good ten minutes just smelling this beer. Dominant aromas of raisin, some light soy, brown sugar, vanilla, light alcohol, and a healthy dose of chocolate blend together nicely. The balanced aroma didn’t carry over into the flavor though. The tastes upfront are very nice and well integrated, with anise, chocolate, dark fruit, and raisin. This is very nice and port-like. The finish really falls flat though, with roasted malt that increasingly becomes charred and astringent creating an off flavor of green snap peas. The alcohol also shows up as well, and it begins to remind me of the wretched Mikkeller Black. Full, viscous mouthfeel. A solid beer, and if the finish had been balanced, it could’ve been great.

Bottle 38/40. This is an awesome beer. Sweet plums in the aroma, with Belgian yeast and malt. Smooth and sweet flavor that includes oak, vanilla, some brandy, and just a hint of sourness. The high abv is entirely hidden. Very thick and heavy, and nearly still like an English imperial stout.

Bottle 38/40. Huzzah to Brad (BDR)! Pours black as oil and about as thick with no head. Strong aroma of sherry, vanilla and toasted oak. Lots of vanilla sweetness in the flavor. Plenty of roasted malt and chocolate, but really buried under sherry, vanilla and oak. Slightly chalky feel. A little oxidized like an English-style Imperial Stout. Freakin sweet.

Bottle 38/40, thanks to the uber-generosity of Brad Reno. Thank you sir. Oily port-black burgundy. Fat and sumptuous chocolate and reduced port and sherry aroma. Wildflower honey, tangy and soft in sweetness; alcohol spirit-like and pillowy. A firm, tannic acidity, and some fleeting then warming caramel strength. Fusel-like as it warms further, and getting gritty and quite rough with unrefined sugar, booze, and untextured malt.

Flavor is fat sherry and chocolate oil, with a musty dusting of wooden bitterness; alcoholic, but well-supported. Many different flavors of berries and dark sugar, which in the middle gather an unbearable syrupy sweetness, and this isn’t readily tempered by the right kind of bitterness; rather, there’s a lot of black malty tar. The herbal honey flavor provides a flutter of balance, close to satisfyingly, near the finish.

Oily, and dense, but not too warm in the palate. Burnt rubber and tar sensations are more prevalent than the blackening effect of booze; a huge residual sweetness, which is a better flavor for it draw out on that the asphalt and cigarette ashes it leaned toward, and even if it’s distantly unpleasant to me it’s still totally tolerable.

Bottle 75cl @ [ Tasting in Ulfborg ].
[ Bottle #25 of 40 ]. Clear dark black color with a average, creamy - frothy, good lacing, mostly lasting - diminishing, light brown head. Aroma is heavy malty, burnt, caramel, dark chocolate, coffee, dark berrys - fig, pruns and raisins marinaded in port or cherry, wood - oak, moderate alcohol. Flavor is heavy sweet and bitter with a long long long duration. Body is full, texture is oily - creamy - syrupy, carbonation is soft to flat, finish feel is moderate alcoholic. so nice and very very good .. well done Mikkelle a master piece again from you ! Lucky me that I did make it to taste this very complex beer .. ;o)) (110708)