Struise Black Damnation V - Double Black

Brewed by De Struise Brouwers
Style: Imperial Stout
Oostvleteren, Belgium

Serve in Snifter

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Bottle. Pour is outrageous. Incredibly thick and totally black with a deep red/ brown lasting head. Just beautiful. Aroma is surprisingly subdued with hints of dark roasted malt, dried fruit, faint tobacco, and some alcohol notes as it warms. Flavor is awesome. Rich, deep, roasted malt with hints of dark fruits and very very little alcohol. Finish is long with notes of toffee and rich sweet malt. Palate is so wonderfully soft and luscious. Sticky and huge but quite drinkable for 26%. This is one of the best beers I have ever had. The only thing I can even consider deducting for is the somewhat subdued aroma with a touch of alcohol. So good.

bottle @dmac’s willblake is back in NJ tasting-thanks jtclockwork–pours black that sheets the glass and still. Aroma is roasty dark malt-anise, some dark fruit, wood. Taste is wood, roasty dark malt-anise, some dark fruit, 2nd earthy hops.

750ml bottle from Sarro. Opened after a 5 year vertical of Dark Lord and a 2011 Black Tuesday so you would think that the palate would be completely toast...and I’m not lying it wasn’t perfect but this beer was able to blow past my somewhat compromised palate and make an impression. Black with a hint of mocha head, surprising amount of carbonation as the cork popped out. Oily, thick, viscous - lots of booze although it does not overwhelm - in fact it seems like it belongs, chocolate, some coffee, sweet malts, vanilla, some molasses, light soy, and some liquorice - smorgasbord of intense flavours that meld reasonably well. Sweet, malty, low carbonation (even though the cork popped), covers your mouth in an oily dark texture and the finish just keeps on going. Something that is worth trying at least once but open the bottle with enough friends

Pours deep black with little head. Malt cocoa and coffee in the nose. Taste is huge booze, but hey its 26%. Cocoa, coffee and some burnt raisins. Alcohol really covers up the flavor profile. Sticky and a bit cloying.

Pour shared by Greg and Caleb - thanks! Wow. Dark. Thick. Both understatements. Sweet boozy nose, thick warm chocolate coffee booze port goodness. Like the symbiont Venom from Spiderman crawling and coating every nook and cranny of your mouth and throat. This is a good thing. A very good thing. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Poured a viscous pitch black body that is super oily and totally coated my snifter, no head to speak of. The aroma is HOT!!! Loads of alcohol, nicotine, tobacco, vanilla exract, wet espresso, licorice, molasses and corn syrup. The body is total heat with a syrupy feel and light carbonation. Flavor is a bit better then the aroma with lots of burnt toast, molasses, corn syrup, black licorice, vanilla exract, honey, cognac. This one grew on me and is a nice super slow snifter sipper but at 26% it’s like, hmm why 26%???

Thanks to Jtclockwork for a sample of this. Pours out a syrupy black color with a rim of a tan head. Aroma is of sweet sticky syrup and bourbon. Taste is straight up sticky sweet alcohol with some roast, complex chocolate some vanilla bourbon and a decent amount of heat. Moutfeel is like that of syrup.

On-tap at the Struise Old School. Do I refer to how this beast doesn’t seem like the high abv it is or as a fantastic stout? It doesn’t drink like a 26% beer. It is carbonated with a lasting head. The booz doesn’t beat you over the head. The bourbon is in there but not overpowering. Everything just comes together nicely.

Bottle shared by Steve. Pours black with brown head. Nose/taste of Belgian sugar, chocolate, oak, vanilla, black espresso and rich dark chocolate. Some alcohol in back of palate but very smooth for the ABV. Medium body.

Black pour with tan head and lace. Black coffee and tar. Super espresso, abv, and bitter with texture. An almost chewy beer.

From notes. First reviewed 9/20/2011. "Served on tap in a tasting glass at Zwanze Day. This beer is black as black and thick as molasses. It barely moves as I try to swirl it around the glass. Only a 26% stout can hold like this. A few tiny brown bubbles form as I pour it into the glass, but there is no hope for any retention. The aroma is blended together very well. Dark chocolate is full and intense, chocolate and roasted malts provide a firm backbone, and bourbon is there in support. One of the few times I have had a bourbon barrel aged beer where the bourbon had more of a supporting role in the aroma. Double Black is thick and complex, and the flavors are blended very well. Molasses, some raisins, lots of dark Belgian chocolate, full roasted malts border on burnt, a bit of anise, some vanilla, and finally, bourbon. The finish is smooth with some espresso bitterness. There is such a lack of discreet progression in this beer; one flavor just rolls into the next with great ease. Incredibly thick body, with tightly wound flavors and carbonation. Alcohol pricks the tongue but is barely present in a soft burn in the throat. Sticky and syrupy, of course, there was no way this could not be intense on that front. I am normally wary of super high ABV beers since they strike me as more of a gimmick than a true beer experience. Somehow, this breaks the mold and is surprisingly drinkable. By that, I mean, it drinks like a beer with half its ABV, which would still be pretty high. But I could easily enjoy sipping a glass of this over a few hours and never tiring of it.