Harveys Imperial Stout

(Bottle from 2001 at Plan B, Copehagen) Pours brown to black. The head consists of three brown bubbles - soon to be gone. Smells rum, raisins, madeira and salty soy. Chocolate. Well balanced. Wet tobacco. The taste is dry cocoa. Heavy salty liquorice. Burtned taste. A good palate feeling. In the begining it is warm and peppery. Then dry. Finishes with sour and dry bitterness. som hints of black coffe. Ok body.

2001 bottle sampled August 2006.

Cork comes out with a soft pop; the beer pours thick, almost oily, and black with no head. The aroma is richly vinous, woody, and full of roast-coffee malts. The previous reviewer’s comparison to a Bordeaux is apt. The flavor is powerful and complex, again heavy and sour red wine flavors lay atop a rich dark-roast base, woody tannins drifting across the flavor profile, alcohol making itself apparent, spicy throug the mid-sip tendrils of sweet roast extending through the dominant flavors causing the beer to swing from sweet to sour several times in the course of a single sip. At five years, the hops have little bite left; the late finish spicy is more salty -- think salt licorice -- than truly bitter. The mouthfeel is rich but also somewhat hot.

This is a complex and tasty beer, with a tremendous amount going on within the span of every single sip (just think, we hit sweet, sour, salty, bitter). Still, I prefer a number of the better made US imperial stouts to this one, and at this price point there is little to draw me back to it.

Bottled 2001: Beer pour fourth from the bottle black in color and totally headless even with a vigerous pour. Aroma is extremely wine like reminding me somewhat of a nice Bordeux I had the other day. Notes of dark fruit, tobacco, earth, and vinegar. Flavor is quite sour with flavors of dark unsweetned chocolate, heavy roastiness, as well as matured ripened grapes and lots of chalk. A very intesting brew, more like wine to me than a beer though.

Bottle sampled with Stegosaurus. Pours dark without a head. Aroma of fruit, roast, and vanilla. The flavor is roast, fruit, syrup, vanilla, and a little wine like. Great beer.

2001 bottel. Beautiful aroma showing chocolatey vinious notes with touches of sourness and hints of vinegar. Carbination almost gone. Thick, extremely oily mouthfeel, sour chocolate flavors with warming notes of wine and cork and a finish of somewhat astringent chalky bitterness.

Incredibly vinous and rich nose. Pours as dark as night. It shows no liveliness like that of any lighthearted beer, more it seethes broodingly in the glass with all the foreboding of a deep molasses swamp at midnight. On sampling it takes a while for the tastebuds to accustom themselves to the incredibly rich and deep flavour, but when they do notes of syrup of figs, christmas mince, month old raisins in sherry, and other spicy, sweet, vegetative characters. Nice.

As soon as this 2001 bottle is uncorked the room is filled with a heavenly aroma. The beer pours with a delightful glug glug sound. The glass fills with a black beer with brown/red/cherry bubbles around the edges. The aroma is as complex as it is extremely powerful and potent. Most prevalent scent is of port and cask wood but has a rich and wide range of spices and fruit. Taste is a bit acetic and sour that fades into a fruity but bitter scotchy aftertaste. Smells better than it tastes or maybe this bottle has been sitting out in the heat a little too long. Nothing I would expect an imperial stout to taste like.

2001 bottle at christian firtal Odense: . Black with a reddish hew. No head at all. Vinous and roasty malty aroma. Some liquorice & smoke. Filling & creamy texture. warmth from alcohol. Very sour, almost like a Beer rouge. Finish is long and again vinous and has slight bitterness. Never tasted an imperial stout this vinous - different.