Obi Wan Shinobi
Elusive Brewing

absolutely epic beer, a highlight of my trip to london, and one of the coolest uses of honey i have known in any beer, especially a dark one. its a smoked stout, rightly smoky and rich and heavy and black and big, done with special honey and aged on rum soaked cocoa nibs, which i have never heard of before in my life. to have this on cask was even more special. what in introduction to elusive here, wow! the beer is rich and black looking, near still but not entirely. there is a lot of honey in the nose, almost like it was back sweetened with a raw waxy honey after fermentation, as its sweet and natural and seemingly not broken down by the yeast much. on top of that is a rich earthy smoke component, pretty pungent all the way through but never acrid. at the same time, there is a huge heap of dark malt, dark cocoa, and booze, really pretty sexy and insanely interesting. the flavor is great here too, the honey really stands out, lots of it must be used to get through all this dark grain and alcohol. some molasses from the rum, the raw floral honey, again i think it must be added after fermentation, its do bright in this. the cocoa adds needed bitterness before the sugar runs away with this, and a little hot alcohol kind of cleans the palate at the swallow of each sip, only mellow campfire embers smoke on the palate at the end. really compelling stuff, the honey makes it really original, but overall its just an incredible beer. a beer of the year candidate for me at this point, totally blown away by it!

Bottled and possibly bottle conditioned and smoked
Pours a very very very very dark brown body with minimal tan head
Aroma is port and vanilla
Flavour is smoky treacle with booze with a liquorice finish