Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon Second Edition

Formerly brewed at Nøgne Ø
Style: Imperial Stout
Grimstad, Norway

Bottle #04632, aged about a year. The body is absolutely pitch black, crowned by a frothy, dark brown head the quickly fades away to nothingness. Some dense sheeting slides down the glass, but no lacing remains. The nose is fairly enticing, and certainly unique. An overtone of burnt honey lends a fruity, floral sweetness to the requisite black patent malt and bitter dark chocolate. Strong anise and licorice lend a boozy sharpness, while hints of Turkish coffee offer further roast. Vanilla, blackberries, black cherry, and raisin round out the complex aroma. The flavor is again very sweet, actually a little too much so. The prominent honey note is almost mead-like and very floral, completely unxpected in a monster stout. Anise, coffee, and strikingly bitter chocolate come across sharp, roasty, and earthy. Stewed raisins and dried out blueberries give further sweetness and fruity depth. The palate is expectedly hot, yet full and creamy, perhaps a little overly sugary. Overall, it’s an interesting and complex experiment, pretty tasty actually, but the massive sugar content and boozy warmth just aren’t really my style.

Bottle, thanks to Secret Santa from last year. Pours an extreme black with thin, but everlasting dark tan head. A swirl yields high legs that last quite some time. The aroma is that of a sweet liqueur, something like Bailey’s, with some coffee and lots of alcohol. The flavor is dark, bitter chocolate, Indonesian coffee, vanilla, oak, black cherry, and a little bit of burning cigar. The warmer it gets, the more charred and smoky it seems. There is a ton of alcohol in the finish, but it’s all very clean. The aftertaste lasts forever, and after the alcohol fades, it’s a lot like mint chocolate ice cream. This is one intense beer, and quite tasty at that.

From the Bottle at the Falling Rock Tap House, Denver 26/09/2009 Caramel malt aroma. Dark coloured strong in alcohol and fruity with a crisp and slightly dry creamy malt finish.

Bottle. Have been holding onto a bottle of this for some time and I thought my 300th rating was as good a time as any to try it. It certainly is dark, jet black with no light getting through and a thin, bubbly dark brown head that quickly disappears. Nose has strong notes of port wine, dark chocolate and cherry, as well as lesser notes of roasted malt, licorice and coffee. Flavour has strong chocolate, coffee and spice, and also very noticeable alcohol which is less like port and more spirit-like (whisky?); notes of roasted malt, and cherry aren’t as strong but are still present as well as some nuts on the finish. Mouthfeel is thick and oily with warmth from the alcohol and a fairly long sweet/bitter finish. Although it is full-bodied, it isn’t as thick or syrupy as some other Imperials in this calibre. Would love to have tried the first edition as I think this is a particularly fine and interesting, though hideously overpriced stout. Looking forward to edition 3.

Pours black with a thin brown head. Aroma is extreme roast coffee and chocolate with a hint of dark fruit. Huge mouthfeel. Immense roast coffee flavor. Very warming. Some dark fruit wine notes too. Hides the alcohol surprisingly well. I wish I’d had a first edition because this is very good.

Dark brown hue with no head. Nose is big coffee, alcohol, dark fruits, hints of smoke and vinous too. Flavor is coffee, chocolate malts with dark fruits, smoke, and heavy alcoholnwarmomg in the finish. Full body, thick texture, medium carbonation. Very hot and coffee forward stout, not quite in the same league as the 1st edition, hopefully will even out with more time; very good but not quite in the elite realm.

Aroma: malolactic, port, vanilla, dark chocolate, dark malts – delicious. Slightly of coffee (delicious), hot but cool. Slightly towards a cognac-like aroma. Hops can be deiscerned, but not easily. Lovely, but definitely towards a sweet and sophisticated porter/port-realm. Some woody funkiness and vague peatiness comes through, reminds me of watered Laphroaig och Lagavulin. Nice!
Flavour: Initial roastiness followed by hot, alcoholic maltbitterness. Syrup and fine dark chocolate. Slightly towards espresso but with a very smooth bitterness. Fruitiness lingers in the mouth. Nutty, reminiscent of walnuts. Slightly vetegable aftertaste from the hops. Not bad, but should’ve been a bit more ‘fresh’. Given the lack of real bitterness that for example Mikkeller Black has (now that we’re talking extreme impys) the alcohol strength and sweetness is a bit too much for it to be perfectly balanced. Could’ve gone towards a more extreme roast and hopping. It’s hard to pinpoint where the fruityness comes from, or what it is like. I’d compare it to old apples, pears or posibly rosehip. Hard to pinpoint… After a while, the sweetness is more obvious and hits you first of all with every sip.
Appearance: Black with a brown rind, dark greyish brown head and yellowish lacing. Looks more brutal than it tastes.
Palate: Very smooth, creamy and oily. Superb!

500mLShared with SpencerDB

Tried this exactly when the bottle recommends: Fall 2009 after being brewed Nov 4 2007. Pours almost pitch black, more like a crazy dark brown, with a scary, menacing, super dark brown head that is very thin but has okay retention and leaves spotty lacing. Aroma is massive spiced rum, scotch, semisweet chocolate. Taste is HUGE warming alcohol at 16%. This is like drinking chocolate, watered down spiced rum. Though it is high in alcohol, this beer is not a thick, huge impy- it is more like straight whiskey with chocolate added. But the thing about this beer is that the palate is also whiskey. It sits in the mouth like liquor: lots of warming, spice, and it sort of stings the tongue and leaves a powerful tingling. I’m disappointed, but this makes me yearning to try DH1, which may have to wait to be my 800th rating.