Kapittel Pater
Pours a dark Hellish red-brown, lots of swampy haze and a decent dark beige head that sinks steadily but retains a nice thin crown of small bubbles. Lace is understandably sticky. Looks good for the style, and in general. Smells quite fruity, in a dark sense. Lots of raisins, prunes and glac cherry with a good musty spice at the back giving green peppercorns and some rye notes. Sweetness is perhaps a bit too pervasive but it's otherwise got all the right elements. Taste is fairly malty on the front with a toffee/Belgian candi sugar kind of flavour upfront. Develops more interesting, complex sweet notes midway with maraschino cherries, plums and a marzipan flavour adding some bitterness to proceedings. Late-mid there's a touch of cola that coincides with a real dry fizz on the mouthfeel, then finish is dark, phenolic and earthy with residual sweetness taking on an overripe, syrupy complexity at the back. I want to like this, but there's no real skillful blend of the flavours and they just seem like they're just going through the motions with an unbalanced palate being the end result. Sweet on front, phenolic on back, standard without any wow factor. A bit thin on the body overall and could have used more. A decent, but not outstanding drop, overall. Lack of excitement does not equal lack of appreciation.