8th Anniversary Mix
Hardywood Park Craft Brewery

Presentation: 750ml brown bottle with no dates, served in a Sensorik glass.

Appearance: The head is a healthy two fingers, fine, tightly packed and tan colored. It stays around for a long time and leaves behind a foam layer that remains until the end and a lot of dense lacing that covers the entire glass beautifully. It's a deep, dark, pitch black color.

Smell: There's damp oak, raw cocoa, dark hot chocolate, light roasted coffee beans, peat, fresh cinnamon, figs and brown sugar. The aroma is subtle but very complex and pleasant on the nose.

Taste: It's a very complex flavor profile with a long finish which gives you ample time to savor everything this beer is bringing. It starts mildly sweet with milk chocolate, molasses, brown sugar and vanilla up front, followed by some fruity cherry and fig right after. Then the moderately strong, smokey peat flavor creeps up the palate along with some slightly bitter and dark charred oak. It finally finishes with with coffee and caramel covered apple. 

Mouthfeel: It's rich, velvety smooth and very robust but flows relatively free. It doesn't have a a strong oily consistency, it just feels silky. Carbonation is low.

Overall: A stunning beer in every sense. Hardywood made something incredibly special here worthy of being an anniversary beer. Also, with such complexity, power and high ABV the fact that this is still relatively easy to drink is pretty amazing all by itself.

Overpowering peat and smoke from the scotch. It's a shame because it would have been a great beer otherwise. Nice, thick mouthfeel, really smooth. Near drain pour though, band aids.

L: Poured from a bottle to a pint glass. Had a coal black color and a thick, opaque consistency. There was a thin, creamy, tan-colored head that quickly dissipated. Not much lacing to speak of.

S: A very nice aroma of booze, wood, chocolate, stone fruit, caramel, and dark fruit.

T: Tasted of a hint of caramel (sweet, but fleeting), a bit of stone fruit (cherries, in particular), a good shot of chocolate (always welcome), a variety of booze (bourbon, in particular), some dark fruit (raisins, plums), and oak as well. A very focused, well-balanced taste. Not as boozy as you'd think, but still packs a punch. Tasty stuff.

F: A below average amount of carbonation with a super-smooth finish. Full-bodied.

O: A solidly made, interesting stout. Drinkable.