Omnipollo: Amurga (Sweden: Imperial Stout: 11% ABV)
Visual: Black. Creamy brown head that leaves suds.
Nose: Grated chocolate and chocolate dust. Wholemeal bread. Smooth. Light butter.
Body: Smooth. Wholemeal bread. Treacle. Bitter chocolate. Bitter nutty character. Cashew to walnut notes. Light butter like fatty character. Cherries come over time. White chocolate.
Finish: Bitter chocolate. Thick maple syrup. Charring. Charcoal. Light greenery. Salt touch. Cocoa. Bitter nuts. Grapes. Lightly peppery. Cashew shell green flecks. Rough hop character. Butter fatty character. Apple liqueur. Fortified red wine.
Conclusion: Considering the wealth of ingredients that I presume went into this, based on the description anyway, it turns out to be a pretty single minded beer in the imagery it delivers.
It is thick in a fatty, buttery kind of way with solid bitter chocolate into bitter hop character that works as a solid weight on your taste-buds. It pushes through that into heavier charred to charcoal bitter black notes and bready weight. Dark heavy notes are the story here, bitter but on a smooth, if thick, texture all the way.
It is only in the final third of the beer that it starts to push back against that imagery that dominates the first two thirds. White chocolate notes mix into the darker chocolate, and vague hints of cherries escape occasionally, bringing with it light spirity to liqueur sweet notes that work underneath the main notes – an odd mix of apple liqueurs and red wine. This manages to open up the beer in a way that the simpler, heavier front did not.
So, the front is ok but far too simple, all basic rough heavy weight notes. The end however has spicy, spirity subtlety that makes the heavier notes dance and uses the fatty, buttery character to give those notes grip.
It is good, in fact by the end it is very good, but it does take a good whole to get there – the rough charcoal and slight salt notes that are rewarding grounding late on are simple and annoying early on.
So, a good beer that takes a tad too long to get going and reward you for your time.
Background: Ok, this is another beer trying to set the record for most odd ingredients used in ak beer. This is described as a black butter vanilla volcano salt mocha maple white chocolate ganche. Presuming they did not put actual ganache in this means I have no idea which of those are ingredients and what is what they were aiming for. Ah well. Anyway, Omnipollo are a bloody good brewery so I grabbed this from Independent Spirit a while back and waited for a good opportunity to try it. Put on Mclusky: Mcluskyism – still love the utter insanity of their tunes.
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