Great nose, burnt sort of double FES awesomeness going on from the first instant.
And indeed a rather nice progression of flavours, including a bunch of good choc / coffee / roast notes that work well in the style. What's different about this beer is the way they're presented - it feels like it's maybe backwards in a way, providing the comforting chocolate stout presence first up, before bitey aggressive roast smokiness second. The whole thing leaves you with a pretty powerful dry roasty mouth presence which is not unpleasant, but a bit different to the norm.
Good stuff here - perhaps not quite the traditional 'imperial stout' for mine tastewise, though it does slip through at an unobtrusive but substantial 9.1%. It's not that the taste or body is lacking - it just comes across as more like a hyper awesome full roasty FES party monarch than the sweeter and heavier, benevolent imperial king you were expecting.
Fun times to be a royal. 8.0
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