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Thanks to Tip Top for bottle #6284 of 11960. Thanks to Tavernjef for a prior review that there's no way I can live up to. Dude can freaking write.

Motor oil, more precisely used 5W30 Pennzoil, in color with a tan head that lasts and lasts... Aroma is a sweet roastiness, a hint of toast, along with a healthy dose of earthy hops that really rounds things out.

Starts with a clean bittersweet cocoa and dark fruit (black cherry, fig?) maltiness, with big subdued sweetness behind it. The earthy hops kick in mid sip along with a dry cocoa and tobacco note, almost a cigar store sort of flavor. Hints of citrus in the background that linger. Alcohol is restrained but still present, but has no chance of keeping up with the body of this thing, which while big is not obtrusively *huge.* A great beer for sipping at the end of the evening.

An impressive brew, especially in how it manages to let the hops shine in despite it's weight.

Served In: Pint Glass

Bottle 06339 of 11960 - Pours a omnivorous brown to establish its ever so opaquely inked blackness in the glass. A tall sponge of dark khaki tan foam swells up swiftly. It resides down to a dense compaction of foam that firmly sits for the duration of each pour from the bottle and growing again at each addition. Lacing covers the glass with a solid base of moth holed sheeting.

At first wiff this was impressively complex, but somehow it lost its capacity and mellowed out as it sat. However, the nose is mostly an all overness of dryish chocolate covering an even higher amount of pruney port-like tangerine peel sweetened tangyness. Nice notes of pie crust, black cherry, and an ever changing demeanor of vinous alcohol. Its a great nose, but just not as boomingly wafty as it could be.

Taste of solid satisfaction here with a big, bold, and beefy character thats soaks right into every corpuscle of your taste buds. Tangy black cherry, prune, plum, and even some citrusy things(tangerine, orange, lime)are placed well in the forefront and coated with a soothingly taming chocolate tone. Mellowing out nicely, staying tangy but mild and chocolate laced in the mid ranges into one finely developing finish of charred, burntish roasty grains. Leaves a heavy bittering tang of chocolate, cherry, and fig with heavenly notes of port-like warmth.

Body of this Boulevard beaut is quite substantial and grand. Starts tangy and large, bold and grabbing, fulls up and then softens up as it soothes its way to silken creamy sense of chocolate mildness. Holds its tang inbetween and along the way into the finish where it gets all lofty and impressive as noted in the taste. One solid beast of a brew!

A true and purely dark sipper of an Imperial Stout. The balance of darkly set tang is superbly set amounst its milding, mellowing chocolate and warming vinous tones. Boulevard can smile big and drink even bigger with this one under their belt in the Smokestack series!
Solid fuckin yum!

Price: $13.00 Served In: Goblet