Hibernator
Old Bear Brewery

Appearance: Very dark chestnut brown colour with a huge creamy tan head, and very little carbonation. Very heavy lacing.

Aroma: Lots of roasted malts on the nose, with hints of coffee, and a touch of dark chocolate.

Taste: Like the nose, there is a heavy roasted malt influence in the flavours, providing bitter chocolate, and strong espresso coffee. There are hints of nuttiness, slightly sweet pistachios and cashews, with the bitterness of walnuts. The finish is quite dry, and bitter.

Mouthfeel: Heavy on the palete with a very smooth and silky texture, with a fairly weak carbonation.

Drinkability: Very drinkable strong bitter, in fact it is a really good beer. I'm need to have some more of this. The flavours are rich and well rounded, with a wonderfully bitter lingering aftertaste.

Tasted this beer by half-pint at the Head of Steam, Euston London, on 29/05/05. With kind and helpful information from BSF, I finally could pin down this beer's style: Winter Warmer, although I'm still curious why the brewery would put this beer as one of their three regular brews if it's meant to be consumed in winter?

Appearance: in a half-pint straight glass it pours a mahogany hue with no head at all... looks a bit like some chilled longan-fruit tea available back at home.
Smell: very complex on nose--burned brown sugar, longan-fruit, date, prune, lightly-smokey and nutty...it's basically malt-dominated but very very versatile~~
Taste & Aftertaste: warm and soft date-like malts on palate plus black-fruity and nutty flavour; the main theme is underlined by extremely intensive bitterness which lingers only too well and goes drier and drier in the finish...
Mouthfeel & Drinkability: on top of medium to rich flavour, medium body and overall very smooth mouthfeel, this brew's lingering bitterness and the three-dimensional feel attributed to this factor is just awesome. An extremely "quaffable warmer" it is...