Pours a deep brown colour with ruby red highlights and a very thin tan head. Smells like deep roasted malts, and some coffee. There may be a hint of chocolate in there as well. Smells like a nice porter or a bit of a stout maybe. Up front the taste is light and sweet. Finishes very chalky and roasted bitter. There’s a lot of coffee flavours in it. Carbonation is low, but it works for this beer, and it is a fair bit creamy, but not downright chewy.

Tasted 24/11/2008. Bottle fFrom www.beerstore.co.nz. Black with a lingering creamy tan head. Like a toasty Baltic Porter, sweet, bready and very ’German’ in the malt on the nose (and in the mouth). Definite undercurrent of dark fruit, subtle and interseting, with a gentle alcohol warmth. Toasty malt balances, leaving hops to play second fiddle, they’re almost unnoticeable. Palate is wonderfully long and delicately tannic, with hints of dark berries and herb. Very clean ferment but the addition of the elderberries give this the most amazing ale-like quality. Well constructed, superbly drinkable, I want more!

bottle. Aroma of roasted malts, black licorice, red wine, yeast, and dark fruit. Black in the glass with a smaller than average off-white head that mostly diminished and left little lace. Flavor is sweet and slightly bitter near the finish. Palate is medium-light bodied and water soft. Cool story but in the end it didn’t impress.

Bottle. Black colour with medium creamy light brown mostly lasting head. Aroma is roasted malt. Sweet bitter flavor. Creamy palate.

A black colored beer, with a thick dark beige/brown foamy head. it leaves a nice lace on the glass. The aroma of fruity chocolate, with roasted malts. The taste is dry of roasted malts, with hints of chocolate with dark fruits, like berries. The aftertaste is a little bitter, but stays for quite a while.