Trafalgar Black Bullet

Brewed by Trafalgar Brewing
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Oakville, Canada

Bottle at Tied House
Unlike many people I found this to not be all that bad. Viewed in the light of a 17% ABV beer it lacks the flaws that some other ultra-high gravity beers possess. I would not drink more than a 200ml bottle but for something to warm the senses on a cold winter night it works quite well. I think this shows that hidden gems can exist among those love/hate beers of the world.

Aroma / Appearance - Very flat with no carbonation as you would expect this swirled around the glass like a fortified wine. The nose was smoky like bacon and warm motor oil. Cherry seeds provide another layer of texture. For 17% it was not nearly as heavy as I expected it to be.

Flavor / Palate - Heavy and cloying I did not detect many of the notes of soy as other people have. Warm through the palate it sits around a long time. Had I not eaten dinner a few minutes later it would probably have lasted for twenty minutes or more. This interesting beer is an experiment that seems to have gone mostly right.

Bottle @ Muskoka Beer Festival 2009: Pours dark brown, no head. I know exactly what I’m getting into here but it’s a sample instead of a bottle and I need the rating. Aroma is.. wow.. booze, soy sauce, sugar. I’m going to wet my pants over the fact I have to try this. Flavour is strong, sweet, clings to the tongue like a leech. Thank God I tried the 15% version, I still dumped all but two sips of my 4oz sample. Horrific. The host told me most people today had ranked it a 1. He was half right.

200 ml bottle from Garthicus. Nose is sweet toffee, dark fruitiness, candi sugar, and honey. Clear brown with almost no head. Flavor is sweet, with some caramel, and a hint of licorice. A Belgian Strong with honey added to boost the ABV to 17% maybe!

200mL from the X-Mas giftpack. Pours our a dark but still translucent brown with no head. The aroma is equally as horrifyingly awful as the Korruptor was, only with a bit more toffee malt to it. That same wet paper/pen ink booziness that haunts my nose for hours. Rotten bean spouts. The flavour is all cloying sweet terribleness with a lot of booze and maybe a hint of dark toffee malts. Absolutely awful. How Trafalgar can seriously present this as a consumable product is a question I’d like an answer to (if there is one).

Feb 2009 This is a terrible beer. Way too sweet and syrupy. Smells of pure alcohol.

An over-the-edge shwartbeer. Cola and brown sugar with ridiculous alcohol added in, 12% listed but smells and delivers what appears a lot higher. A Trafalgar with some taste.Blackish colour.About right carbonation, this is a crazy beer to throw in for a tasting for two.

Bottle. This is a dark brown, nearing black in the glass. Even a fast pour brought little to no head, which has now completely died down. This has some of the same paint thinner-like aroma of the Korruptor, but with more depth: prune, raisin, alcohol, grape bulk barn candies, more sugar, wood. The mouthfeel is again quite syrupy. I taste tons of sugar with grape bubble gum, alcohol, blackberry and cheap port.

200 ml bottle from LCBO gift pack. Pours a dark crimson letting in some light. The head is almost non existent, but a thin ring does form around the edge of the glass. Nose of prune and plum, boozy winegum candy, oak, and molasses. Tastes sweet, alcoholic candy,sugary fruits, and like others have mentioned, port wine. Pretty intense, thick mouth feel, lingers forever. A bit too sweet for me, but in small doses, much like the others in this series, I am ok with it.