Hardcore Mælk
To Øl

330ml bottle poured into tulip 11/9/16

A black liquid with a dense two finger mocha foam that quickly cuts itself in half then stays there leaving partial rings deep down the glass

S this bottles aged and the hops have faded right off but the barrel notes are strong, peaty, woody, charred coffee, licorice, cocoa, chocolate milk, a fair bit going on

T chocolate and peat come out even stronger, scotch barrel is very hard to miss but it works well with all the dark malt

M silky and smooth, bubbles cream it up after a couple seconds, slick on the palate with a smoky, woody aftertaste that just keeps going

O interesting brew that's past its "Best Before" date by a fair bit but has evolved into something all on its own

I really want to try a fresh hoppy bottle beside this aged on, in all honesty I think this stuff has a ways to go before it peaks

 

330ml bottle, a purported 'Imperial Black Milk India Pale Ale aged in Scotch Oak Barrels'. Ok, what, the kitchen sink wasn't readily available?

This beer pours a solid black abyss, with the barest of red cola basal edges when pressed to the light, and three hefty fingers of puffy, densely foamy, and somewhat bubbly dark tan head, which leaves some spooky, ominously cloudy lace around the glass as it slowly bleeds away.

It smells of bready, grainy pale malt, bittersweet medium cocoa powder, muddled Scotch whisky barrel - mildly peaty alcohol, vanilla, and a bit of wet wood - obfuscated orange and grapefruit citrus, some ethereal pine and leafy hop greenness, cafe-au-lait, and further weedy, herbal, and well-perfumed bitterness. The taste is medium-sweet milk chocolate, bitter citrus peel and pine resin astringencies, a reduced and now generic smoked whisky barrel booziness (save the identifiable vanillan), more well-creamed coffee esters, subtle dark fruit, and plain earthy, leafy, and mildly soused-up herbal hops.

The carbonation is rather tame and innocuous in its gentle-ass frothiness, the body a bare middleweight, and mostly smooth, the char and the hops otherwise too preoccupied to make any sort of fuss here, even allowing for a wee airy creaminess. It finishes off-dry, the creamy cocoa, wan citrus, and lingering Pine-Sol character mixing and mingling like 'twas no big thing.

Wow, I totally thought that this was going to be an outright train wreck from first glance - somehow these two brash Euro-breweries having taken an already hard to love New World style, mixed it with a few more gentile ones, and made it all work. Still pretty crazy overall, but in a way that you won't notice until it's much, much too late.