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Pours a deep, dark chocolate brown and about as opaque as a darck chocolate bar with a creamy tan head that is most appetizing. Incredibly clean aroma of roasted malt, dark cocoa powder, and faintly nutty toasty malt.

If there was a drinkability score of 1-5, this one would get about an 8. Starts with a dark fruity and balanced roasty maltiness; there's a solid roasted barley presence but it stops well short of the "too much" line, instead providing a prime roasty undertone throughout the pint. Fine aromatics of earthy hop and wafting smokiness. Earthy hop bitterness underlies it all. Near the end of the sip there's a flavor that briefly appears that's almost like either birch root or those candy cigarettes that they used to sell back in the 1960s - it adds rather than detracts. Just enough sweetness and fullness to keep me from pounding it like a Guinness. There is no way that this tastes anywhere close to its strength; scary drinkable.

Not at all an overly chewy or tricked out RIS; but an incredibly enjoyable, drinkable one, and I'll take that any day. For a new brewery, they've started out completely on song.

Served In: Pint Glass