Mikkeller 黑 / Black

Mikkeller
Brewed at De Proefbrouwerij
Style: Imperial Stout
Copenhagen V, Denmark

Pours a black color with a brown head. Aroma is molasses, brown sugar, chocolate, roast, a hint of plum, and alcohol. Flavor is malty, caramel, roast, raisins, plum, and a bitter alcohol finish.

Bottled. Thanks Gnoff. Black colour with pale brown head. Gasoline aroma, with green pepper, tar and chamomille. Immensely sweet in flavour and fiercely alcoholic, it is extremely edgy from the high abv. Very unbalanced this young.

Bottle shared by footbalm. Pours a swirling black body with a thick dark brown head. The aroma was quite nice; a fruity mix of dates and plums, also a bunch of coffee and sweet candy, oh and there is alcohol. The taste was dominated by a up-front sweetness, coffee, rich chocolates, sweet fruits, and a smooth body. Later is morphs into a bitter coffee bean and alcohol finish. Not bad at all, but as others have mentioned a bit off, perhaps it needs some time, like 5 years.

I remember once a long tome ago, maybe when I was a teenager back in the early 70’s and I had long hair like every other kid my age back then and I had gotten a bad case of dandruff, probably from all the top-notch LSD that was floating around at the time. I went to the family physician and he gave me this nasty tar-like shampoo that left my hair smelling like a crew had just finished re-doing the asphalt in front of our house and it stunk for days. No matter how much pot I smoked or incense I burned I could not get rid of that stench. What a frightening flashback when I opened this bottle.

The head explodes out of my glass on a steady pour. The tan and copper sand took a while to fall, converging into bigger bubbles and slinking back down into my tulip. The beer itself is a mirrored obsidian. Smells of dry dark chocolate, tart raisins with a fruity mellon zip. There also seems to be a sweet and sour candy to this too, like Smarties. This all seems to be struggling to contain a rampant booziness, but it’s succeeding quite well. Tastes... like stinging? There’s a dry cocoa, corn syrup, port and gooey dried dark fruits, reminiscent of World Wide Stout, at first, but a harsh burn comes tearing through sending any resemblance of balance packing. A harsh over-done coffee takes the stage that seems to have a lot of woody elements to it, drying out my palate with a deft sting. Feels quite light, all things considered, but a carbonation lifts the density away to prepare my mouth for the raw sting. There are some nice points to this one, but it needs time. Lots of time. You will regret opening this one up fresh. Let it sit.

Bottle. Pours black with a small but lasting tan head. Aroma of alcohol, dark fruit, roasted malt, coffee, and licorice. Taste is the same as aroma with a heavy amount of alcohol and a touch of astringency from the roasted malt. Full oily mouthfeel with a moderate to strong amount of roasted bitterness and warm but never hot alcohol. Very young and green but with a year or two of aging this beer should be really tasty.

Pitch black, Little to no head.. Lots and yet loads of taste, very malthy, almost winey, typical mikkeller hops... loads of alcohol... hardly even a stout when we get to this strength.

Doneret af Per ved BASMOF hos Michael påske 2008. Markant meget af det hele - mast ned i en 17,5% alkohol. Tung, fed, sort, oceaner af hårdt ristet malt og distinkt humle. Overvældende - bør prøves igen om nogle år.