Black IPA
Fuller's

 

L- Looks like a glass of coke, with a 5mm mixed size bubble very pale tan head reducing.
S- A touch of fruit and a bit of toast.
T- Toasty, quite pungent coffee in the middle, into some woody sourness. It's pretty hoppy/dry too.
F- The coffee flavour is pungent enough that I don't register/consider the presence of alcohol; surprising as it's 5.7%. Another sup and no, I think it's lost behind the coffee. Carbonation in the mouth is holding up well.
O- The lable's description begins 'A mass of contradictions...' and I'd agree, it is quite unusual. The lable reads 'Black IPA - tropical and dark'. I don't understand the tropical aspect unless that refers to the 'subtle coffee and chocolate flavours'. Coffee seems to be the headline here to me, it dominates over more typical beer-like characteristics.
The lable is that hipster thing of being a printed/textured 'sticky backed plastic' wrap on a plain can, so whilst one hand is busy elsewhere you can grip it with your other whilst preening your coiffed beard at the same time - clever. The can is 440ml perhaps for young people with small hands and fat wallets. Interesting to try, but OTT-expensive for what it is, and not something I'd choose again.
Bought from Waitrose, Marylebone High St., London W1. 440ml can £3, ie £3.90/pint for a supermarket can.
BB: 25Mar20

Pours darkest brown beer with decent beige head, moderate retention, some laces.
Smell - coffee, cacao, grassy hops.
Taste - roasted, nice hop bitterness.
Medium body and carbonation. Balanced.

8oz glass at Beer Revolution YEG Oliver Square.

This beer appears a clear, dark orange-brick brown colour, with one thick finger of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy tan head, which leaves some disintegrating limestone cliff lace around the glass as things slowly abate.

It smells of semi-sweet, bready and doughy caramel malt, a bit of free-range ashiness, candied orange peel, a hint of anise spice, and more leafy, weedy, and floral green hops. The taste is grainy and bready caramel malt, a touch of biscuity toffee, earthy yeast, wet char, muddled citrus zest, subtle Scandinavian licorice candies, and more tame earthy, weedy, and gently perfumed floral verdant hoppiness.

The carbonation is adequate in its generally supportive frothiness, the body a decent medium weight, and mostly smooth, just a soupcon of smoke acridity stumbling clumsily through the tulip patch here. It finishes off-dry, the roasted malt and lingering fruitiness doing well to keep the lights on.

Overall, this come across much more like a hoppy English brown ale, than anything particularly IPA-like. Not bad, because Fullers, and all that, but for this to be considered good, BA would have to create a style called English Black Ale, or something of the kind.