Mikkeller Black Hole

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

[bottle] Potent toasty malt aroma with some vanilla, light coffee and port wine notes. Also quite a bit of pumpernickel in the nose. Oily thick opaque black with tan wisps and ring. Rich, velvety roasted barley with not a small amount of hops flavour and a significant bitterness that attempts to balance quite a bit of residual sweetness. Vanilla, bourbon, pumpernickel, coffee. Excellent, if a bit on the sweet side. Medium to full body, low carbonation, lingering bitterness that is not exclusively from black malt.

375 ml bottle. Pitch black. Fine-laced dark brown head that clings to the glass. Bold licorice aroma with lots of dark chocolate and pine cones. Extremely flavourful. Lots of grassy hops and is very bitter. Multi-dimensional and in-your-face. Very complex, but lacks a little balance. Smooth texture.

Holy hole! Incredible deep black with coffee head. Notes of extremelyness. Burned syrup, toffee, burned and heavy roasted malt, licorice, vanilla, plums, coffeechocs, "hot" burning alcohol, a winterwarmer for hours, close to the limit, wood, mint, orangechocs, fresh noseyeast and burning finish. Will buy one for cellaring!

Bottle. New batch brewed @ De Proef. Aroma of rich, roasted malt, tar, wet leather, vanilla, spent coffee grounds and dark chocolate. Pour looks like freshly roasted espresso with a reddish khaki head. Flavor is quite dry. Lots of roasted coffee, rich, dark chocolate, molasses, and dry and quite bitter hops on the finish. Very complex. Full bodied but with a tad more carbonation than I care for in my Imperial Stouts. Great beer, though.

Re-rate 2/20/08 Nose still has plenty of spent coffee grounds leather and vanilla. Still rather bitter and astringent on the tongue. An odd pepper note that doesn’t quite meld well with the overall essence of the beer. Quite nice, but needs more time to temper the bitterness.

Deep black but not especially sludgy pour, producing a tepid cling of mocha foam around the edge. Burly aroma of beef soaking in port and bourbon. Burnt honey, blueberry, and alcohol leap out loudly in the middle, while pungent, vegetal, dark roasted African beans and soy sauce simmer underneath; hints of melon and burnt popcorn. Bright, electric citrus hops flash across the top and enliven it quite a bit. Taste brings a bold attack of cold-press, the type that typically conjures the damnable stain of expired grounds and soapy ashes; this, however, somehow mostly eludes that issue, gathering the healthier qualities of dark roast with spicy, earthy success. It has its share of minty zest and dry astringency, but this has more of an iron and black licorice skin character than the more typical plastic and soap. Almost soured milk, raspberry cheesecake, and sour mash bourbon lend a specific type of strange sweetness that blankets and warms the earlier acridity into something more pleasant, if certainly quite odd. Berry and currant sweetness expands boldly with warmth, and while this parlays the brutish possibilities of the raw beans even further, those never completely resign themselves; bites of mint leaf and dirty root vegetable tend to consistently creep in. Finally, the high notes of tropical hops ring with crystal clarity above everything else; altogether, aroma and flavor echo each other with little deviance. Palate is comparably light, medium to full in body, and softly carbonated. Finishes with a grisly rare meat and smoke thickness; touch of black cherry and a bit more licorice. Drying. Unique, and quite memorable.

Thanx dan for sharing this.Holy crap this beer is sic! pours like a black hole.Lots of sweet dark fruits with coffee notes on the nose.The flavor was the same.Real defined flavors.This finished of with the coffee and some alcohol popping through.

Wow. As dark and oily as any beer I’ve ever seen. Lacing throughout. Nice tan head. Bitter dark chocolate and loads of coffee dominate the aroma and flavor of this beer while a soft and smooth mouthfeel makes each sip go down easy. Fain alcohol notes in the end don’t hinder this one at all. What an amazing beer experience this is!

Lively cola,malt aroma with touches of coffee and chocolate liquer alcohol. Complex malts taste ,bakers chocolate a tart fruitness, and a cold coffee bitterness that seems like it is derived from the alcohol,the wonderful Mikkeller smoothness on the palate,very subtley complex,not big bodied, the alcohol got a little harsh towards the finish. Probaly will smooth out with age. Nice stout, price a little high