Illuminati Batch 4
3 Stars Brewing Company

From a bottle, pours a very cloudy, thick dark brown with a light brown head. It looks a bit still, like motor oil, and also a little thin.

The nose is very sweet, dark fruit, wet oak, caramel, malt, and lots of alcohol. The flavor is tasted malts, oak, sweet sugary booze, raisins and a little butterscotch. It's a bit messy and sticky going down.

This is better than the first three, but it's not a homerun. They have done better barrel aged beers as regular and limited releases than this one. This is why I didn't renew my membership. It wasn't worth it to get mediocre beers.

The beer pours a nice brown head that dissipates quickly. The beer itself is an opaque black color.

The beer has a nice and rich smell. The smell has notes of vanilla and sweet milk chocolate with a light roast smell underneath it. The smell also has notes of rye and a little of bit whiskey as well. The overall smell is pretty good and much better than what I've come to expect. The smells all complement each other and liven things up.

The beer taste is just as rich as the smell. The beer has milk chocolate notes mixed with the vanilla. Additionally, the beer has surprisingly strong whiskey and rye notes that work well together and contrast a bit with the sweeter notes. The malts are a bit stronger than in the smell.

The mouthfeel is smooth and slick. The beer itself is heavy bodied with some light carbonation. The aging in the whiskey barrels must have given a lighter texture than it would have otherwise. Still, pretty good even if it is a bit smooth for an imperial porter.

Overall, the quality of this brew is pretty strong and worthwhile, It seems the brewery's greatest strength is mixing things up with its pandemic porter. The variation on the porter is definitely one of its strongest and would definitely hope that this makes it to tap.