Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter

Brewed by Närke Kulturbryggeri
Style: Imperial Stout
Örebro, Sweden

Bottle (2006) from De Bierkoning, Amsterdam. To my total surprise this beer was suddenly available in the Netherlands, thank you martinboer for mentioning this! Black appearance, small brown head. Very complex nose, port-notes, wood, malts, fruit (plums) and quite some more stuff i can’t define. Sweet flavour, some cognac notes appear. Alcohol is obviously present. Great mouthfeel and long lasting bitter finish. The combination of flavours is truly unique. Really good.

Bottle, RBESG 2007 in Glasgow, Grand Tasting. Pitch black colour, creamy brown head. Very nice aroma of chocolate and roasted malts, hints of oak. Intensely rich and complex flavour: oaky, vinous, roasty, chocolate, liquorice. An excellent beer, but so is the "ordinary" Stormaktsporter.

Bottle... This beer rocks!... Pitch black ale with a mid-sized, creamy, brown head. The nose is of rich milk chocolate and coconut with a small dose of acetaldehyde. I’m supersensitive to the stuff, so most wouldn’t even detect it. Despite the ethanal, the aroma is wonderful. The flavor offers terrific balance between sweet chocolate malt, woodsy sourmash and moderate scorched bitterness. Full-bodied with a mouthfeel of heavy cream and almost lively carbonation. Burnt, bitter, not-too-boozy, chocolate finish. World class effort!

2006 vintage Huge, dense, very dark-greige head over jet-black beer. Some shards of lace despite all alcohol. Superb winey, vinous nose, with nuts, cocos, moccha, cacao, whisky, rum, dark fruit, fuselalcohols, fresh vanilla and new oak barrels. Impressive. Chocolate flavourS - mix of milkchocolate and full black; rum, but a better kind than I’ve ever tasted; surprisingly sweet, with a vanilla icecream touch, plus a good dot of moccha icecream. Dark rock candi sugar, very little wood, but lots of ethanol & higher alcohols. Liquid black chocolate on rumliqueur. WITH raisins drenched in honey. Utterly viscous, slick as none, soothing best bar none.
Comparing this to Westvleteren is utter nonsense. I never believed in the idea "dessert beer" - until now. Westvleteren is (superb) beer, full stop. Thomas D, eternal gratitude!

2/8/07. Poured out of 330 mL bottle, obtained in a trade with omhper on RateBeer 12/11/06. 2005 Vintage. I hate my glass. Somehow it manages to present an entirely different (and worse) aroma of this beer than the delicious treat my friends’ glasses have shown. So I’m combining the two into some sort of amalgam. Starts briefly with a very raw acetone nose, some grapey and intense black rum-cake notes as well. Fudge liqueur, boozier than the regular Stormaktsporter, and with some tangy wood-solvent in the nose that fades later. Flavor is amazing, with rich ash-rum and black raisiny chewiness and some almost overpowering sweetness that just drops out with perfect elegance into a deep, dry, ashen and faintly cocoa-flavored trail-- grainy like a black-and-white, low-light photograph. The flavor depth that these elite Scandinavian breweries somehow routinely extract from their malt bills is absolutely astounding. Somewhat thinner, drier mouthfeel than its silky sister; fluffier and slightly more scratchy carbonation. Tobacco all over the finish. This is a fabulous beer and deserving of all the praise, but I still prefer it in its more drinkable state, untainted by the funnel of whiskey saturation. Thanks so much, Per!

Pours black, with a brown head. Aroma is bourbon, dark fruit, vanilla, coffee, wood, and vanilla. Flavor is bourbon, coffee, chocolate, dark fruit, and vanilla. Body is medium, thinner than I expected. A very good beer, very happy I got to try it. I wish the bottle was a little bigger, though. Thanks to Francois_Mtl for trading me this one.

This has been on my wantlist for years. I had the luck to try the 2007 and 2008 Kaggen on draft at the Stockholm Beer and Whisky fest, alongside draft Stormaktsporter from 2008 and 2007, and bottled Stormaktsporter from 2006. The 2007 Kaggen was my favorite of the bunch, it was a bit better rounded than the 2008.

Pours very deep brown, nearly opaque, capped with a thin brown head. Beautiful lacing. Aroma of dark chocolate, coffee, molasses, oak and perhaps a bit of honey. Flavor begins with roasted chocolate malt, coffee, licorice, and molasses, with oak and charcoal in the background. Hop bitterness builds a bit towards the finish, and remain on the palate along with dark chocolate. Some alcohol in the finish as well. The body is a bit thinner than I expected. I’m glad I finally got to try this; especially in the vertical/horizontal with the Stormaktsporter. I enjoyed this and wouldn’t pass it up if I encountered it again.

I have to keep my benefactor under wraps, per their request, but suffice to say it’s a them and I thank them profusely and promise to show my thanks very soon. This bottle is a 2006 vintage. <P> The aroma is beef bouillon, soy, dark chocolate, burnt and roasted malts and marshmallows with faint porto notes. The beer pours a gloppy black and settles with a thinnish mocha head, but initially the head is finger thickness and creamy looking. <P> The first sip is fairly boozy and the barrel aging is immediate and unmistakeable imparting vanilla, pineapple and coconut notes. I also get some nutty Maderia notes and gobs of dark chocolate. Fairly hot on the swallow with a cream and chocolate chaser. It almost tastes like a dark chocolate liqueur. The finish makes me think of a vanilla liqueur with faint nutty and chocolate notes that invoke german chocolate cake. A very enjoyable beer that is definitely not a product of hype or hysteria. Now, if they could brew this en masse for a larger market I would be truly amazed....and an exceedingly loyal buyer.