My wife doesn’t really like beer.
And she finds my incessant talking about it a bit boring.
But I asked her, arm-twisted her into trying Black Ops just because we’d never have it again, and she became all animated and started talking about how it tasted of chocolate and coffee.
And then she had another swig.
I think I may be starting to win the battle.
And it’s all thanks to this beast from Brooklyn.
Black Ops is an Imperial Stout aged in Bourbon Barrels and fermented with Champagne yeast.
It’s a thing of deep menacing beauty.
From the gorgeous 750ml cork stoppered, moulded bottle to the final stickiness on your lips, this is a sensational beer.
It pours dark and sexily menacing, like a black hole in your glass, and shows off with a thick creamy cloud of a head.
The smell is rum and cherries, star anise and chocolate, and the taste is simply devine.
The Champagne yeast gives a delightfully soft seductive sparkle on your tongue as your mouth is filled with vanilla pod and dark chocolate richness, rum, Ovaltine and raisins.
It’s a little like a heavily alcoholic Kinder Surprise.
There’s a bunch of beautifully stewed fruit too, with apples and pears, blackberries, plums and apricots all steeped in chest warming boozy goodness.
The malts have a comforting sherry trifle base stodginess too, comforting like an afternoon at your Granny’s.
But it’s no normal afternoon as you find yourself making out in her spare room with a rum soaked beauty dressed in stinging nettles and orange rind.
Right at the end you get a taste of damp whisky tainted wood from the barrel ageing.
It lends a subtle sour prickle to the finish and as such it’s the most wonderful full stop to this astonishing beer.