Double and Imperial usually mean the same thing for a beer, unless both of them are on the label at once! This monstrously strong version of 8-Wired’s iStout was brewed for the 11th anniversary of the stalwart imperial, and it is one BIG beer; slowly meandering out of the can as black and thick as treacle. The aroma is surprisingly gentle, with toasted malt and coconut, milk chocolate and a thread of sweet spicy smoke. Any suggestion of gentility is blown away on contact with the palate, as a wave of outrageous richness blasts across the tongue. Starting with chocolate mud-cake and a dollop of triple chocolate icecream, then a rush of ripe stone fruit crests just before the bitterness takes hold and gradually eclipses the sweetness into the finish. A towering monument of richness and excess.