“One of our most ridiculous, most anticipated, (mostly) annual releases is back! This Imperial Stout has all the ridiculousness you’d expect from a Jumping The Shark Release and then some. We’ve brewed a huge 12.6% Imperial Stout, popped it in some delicious rum barrels for a nice long beauty sleep and finished it with the cherry on top, amphora conditioned cherry, coconut and chocolate!”

Glassware: Snifter.

Appearance: Solid black with a fizzy brown head which dissipates rather quickly. It settles at the rim but leaves a magnificent lace down the glass.

Aroma: Oopht! That gets right up in the olfactories immediately. The dominant scent would be the cherry and at this stage it’s hard to tell whether it’s real fruit or syrup. Who cares! It smells nice! The creamy vanilla also comes off pretty strong as does the coconut, spicy dark rum, licorice and fudge. As we continue to take it in we can’t help but keep thinking boozy Cherry Ripe in a glass. Yum!

Flavour: Similar to the nose where the indecisive but prominent cherry kicks it all off. Coconut, vanilla, sugary dark rum and sweet spice shifts into an almost medicinal cherry flavour early in the mid. The big and aggressive stout base then steps in and carries licorice, molasses, cherry fudge, rum/barrels and coconut through to the rich, sweet and warming finish which draws out nicely.

Mouthfeel: Surprisingly light for the style. Medium-full body, oily texture, low-ish Co2. The 12.6% ABV is fairly well buried for its size.

Overall: Along with Bridge Road’s B2 bomber this is one of a very limited number of seasonal Aussie releases we hold out for. And again it has delivered. Not as well as some of the earlier releases but it’s still bloody good. The “amphora conditioned” side of it is a bit wanky though..no wonder non craft beer drinkers have a laugh at our expense sometimes!