Drexl Blackstrap Imperial Stout
Apex Brewing

Pours absolutely black, thick looking and letting no light through it, develops a solid three fingers of dark brown colored, foamy looking head to it that quickly fades into a watery lacing that slides down the sides of the glass.

Decent aroma to it, sweet smelling dark molasses with a slight hint of dark prunes.

Wow I hope you like molasses because the flavor forward is a little overwhelming, with the first sip overloading the palate a bit, with a strong bittersweet blackstrap molasses flavor to it with some faint notes of dark fruits, especially dark, sticky prunes.

Body is heavy, dark, rich and sweet with a slightly higher then average amount of carbonation to it and a faint toffee flavor to it that mostly gets drowned out a bit by the strong molasses flavor on the front end and is only noticeable as it warms up.

Back end has a noticeable licorice flavor to it with some faint oaky, almost bourbon-like notes and hints of cloves, leaving a lingering dark, spicy sweetness that leaves a sticky mouthfeel as well as a boozy alcohol hit that tingles on the tongue after a sip.

A bit overpowering in both flavor an potency, I enjoyed it but probably wouldn't want more then one at a time.

 

473ml can, the most recent in this brewery's Villainous Series - here we have an ode to Drexl Spivey, from the movie True Romance.

This beer pours a solid black abyss, with the barest of amber basal edges, and four fingers of beautifully cascading, puffy and fizzy brown head, which leaves but a few random specks of teardrop lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of anise spice, brown sugar, bready and doughy caramel malt, a lesser biscuity toffee sweetness, some muddled dark orchard fruity esters, and rather tame earthy, musty, and floral noble hop bitters. The taste is grainy and bready caramel malt, hard toffee, spicy black licorice, brown simple syrup, still difficult to parse black stone fruit, a bit of free-range ashiness, some subtle woodsiness, and more understated earthy, herbal, and gently lit-up floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its palate-pinging frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, excepting that somewhat intrusive licorice spiciness. It finishes off-dry, the sugary malt and star anise grappling for lingering dominance.

Overall - well, for the 'biggest' beer that they have claimed to have made thus far (wouldn't that actually be the Legend Extra Old Ale @11.8%?), this comes off as fairly easy to drink, with hardly a hair of the 22-proof boozy-booze showing its hand. I've never seen the movie with the titular character, so I cannot verify if he is as slick as this stuff is.