It’s been a good while since I’ve had this beer and the fact I’ve already had a grandfather raven means it’s hard to judge this impartially, but this is still very nice. Caramel, lightly plummy, thin but assertive. I think this lives up to my memory.

Strong but mellow, roasty and lightly fruity. I think in the past I have been rating this with the great grandfather raven in mind which is not fair. Strong for sure.

Orange, coriander, starts out with a positive impression but over time a musty wheat funk starts asserting itself. Clean finish.

Really can’t taste peaches*. Hazy, slightly acrid up front but ends up lightly sweet, understated and mellow. *Maybe a bit "fuzzy" at the end, maybe those are the peaches poking through?

Always good. Not top tier, but quite tasty. On the roasty side, with a slight build up of ash, maybe. Noticeable but not overbearing whiskey flavors. One to nurse for a while but worth the whole glass.

I don't feel like this has always been this bad. Reminds me of the old palate-killing Vienna lager from Hi-Fi. Funky-nutty and not much else.

Don’t know what they did to it this year. Smells terrible.

Ripe papaya, pith, slightly oily, resin. Not as cleanly enjoyable as the Azacca. Ironically this feels like Optimism's Azacca from yesterday.

Light papaya, citrus. A little oily and pungent at the start but overall it is light and sunny and fits the description.

Quite tart, fizzy, like a S. Pellegrino Arianciata Rossa with a funky finish, dry Brett bitterness, some horse blanket, but rather clean.

Super perfumey, not bitter but high and dry and sweet. The piney hop oil coats the tongue and lingers.

Decent hazy Pale. Little bit on the drier side - the fruit is "dark."

A round, fruity flavor that calls to mind orange peel. Malty and fruity rather than the hops I remember from earlier iterations of this beer.

Mellow sweet wheat, grapefruit-apricot finish that rings clear and dry as a bell. Not bitter at all. A huge improvement from the 2.0 release.

Starts with a guava-passion fruit opening, some wheat funk, and then a kind of acrid bitter finish that was off-putting at first. After a few sips I think that part of my tongue got burned out and then the rest of the glass was actually quite pleasant. Wish that first part hadn't happened, though.

So good. 10.7abv.

Hilariously, when I ordered a Festivus they brought out another Splinters, and honestly I was too far gone to realize it, other than thinking they'd really improved the Festivus. When they corrected their mistake, yeah. Pretty perfumey.

Still excellent.

Medium roast, coffee-centric. Smooth from the nitro but characterful enough. Again, the barrel character was almost nonexistent. This wasn't going to win any contest against the Splinters, but it was a nice, lighter followup.

Smooth, buttery caramel and strong bourbon. Goes down disturbingly easily. This seems like two years in a row where the Splinters take has been very good.

Much less wine than I remember; this tasted more like a straight up dubbel or quad. Lots of caramel, some boozy notes. I did like it better the old way.

Hoppy and juicy; I'd call this more of a wheat IPA than the name implies.

Better than I remember from past releases. Still not much of the barrel spirit present, if at all, but a fine roast stout with coffee notes, enough to counteract the nitro blandness and produce some solid flavor.

A strong release, I think. Very much bourbon, with a solid, malty, caramel Scotch ale base. Did not think this was thin at all. Back to an awesome rating, and drunk fresh at that!

Seemed a lot more fruity-sour than I remembered, and I don't know if that's real or if I've gotten more sophisticated. Either way I hate everything.

Smells nice and fruity. Sweetish alpha bitterness on the edges but a solid, unsweet flavor, a hint of tropical fruit and lightly pungent resin.

Bready, banana like Belgian but with strong overtone of spicy hops. Drinkable, and pretty good flavor components, but honestly it was one of those more quality than enjoyment type beers for me.

Not a "pumpkin beer", this is a good thing.

Sweet light malt body. Somewhat acidic finish. Pretty alcoholic after burn.

Yum!

Far less opaque than my memory? Still very good, though.

Thinner than I remembered, with a light, caramel, slightly nutty flavor. Bourbon is clear on the tongue but not overwhelming. I think I actually prefer the Possum Claus this year, and I don't know if it's me or the beer that's changed.

Initially thin porter taste gives way to a warm, slightly viscous caramel flavor. Hints of toasted pecans and bourbon that's initially hidden behind the caramel but is definitely there if you look. Stronger than it tastes, too. I was afraid this wouldn't match my memory but it might actually be better.

Vinegary smell. Effervescent, tart ale with definite raspberry notes and a sweet wheaty malt finish.

Pretty much an IPA with nice citrusy resinous hops flavors with a mild bitterness.

Strong chai flavors. The vanilla ones are more subtle. Pretty enjoyable.

Very sour, with some nice raspberry flavors. Has a little of a pickled flavor though.

Fruity, somewhat bitter, good yeast funkyness. Some of that tripel honey like sweetness.

Very smooth with strong and dry roasted coffee flavors.

Extremely fruity, round fruit and hops, on the front, although it's more of an essential-oil fruitiness than anything that seems super-integrated. The finish is a bit acrid and bitter, which builds up unpleasantly over time.

Very strong yeasty herbal flavors. Strong yeast bitterness. Good booziness.

Why, yes, I can keep doing this.

Might be the best batch yet? Cherry, subtle clove, bit of chocolate on the finish.

Nicely toasty-sweet, gem-clear with a rich, yeasty fragrance. I think this year's batch is less hop-prickly than before and more straight Oktoberfest lager in character. Since I really like that, I think it may the best batch yet.

Mildly tart, soda-like weisse with a dry, blackcurrant tang leading into a sweet wheat finish. Maybe I've just had too many British pastilles, but I couldn't help thinking of anise and medicinal herbs when drinking this. Other than that, it was pretty tasty (and different!).

Chocolate and light bourbon. Plum. A nice sipper.

I wanted to like this but didn't quite connect. The tripel character borders a bit on the syrupy side, and the transition to wood is more disconnected than I'd like. It took me quite a while to finish this one.

Hoppy, syrupy, cloying. Verged a bit on medicinal in flavor. Really had a hard time with this.

Cleaner profile similar resinous hopiness pretty good

Well rounded resinous hopiness. Nice pepper flavor without any spiciness. Obvious cardamoms flavors. Leaves a pretty strong herbal flavor in the mouth.

Pretty good for a sour... I'm starting to get this whole sour thing, darn you all, especially you, Matt.

Kind of middle of road as far as scotch ales go...

Very spicy with the peper flavors eclipsing everything else

Yup. Still good.

Still as excellent!

Today this beer felt a lot stronger on the bourbon, but I may have been burned out on strong beer. It was still really tasty but a little less remarkable.

It didn't taste much like a wit, nor a radler (their cute name for this cask). Much more profound, like a Belgian IPA, with equal parts dank hops and clove and white pepper in the flavor. Some citrus, although of the candied variety, and maybe some anise or medicinal herb in there? Weird. Not bad, but really weird.

Reeeeealllly good! Good roastiness, not too boozy for the abv. Really, really good. Thankfully not as woody as the random barrell I was lucky to taste a few months ago. Had two of them :3 Can't believe the bottles were all gone in a few hours.

Dry, dark chocolate with subdued wood and a good amount of bourbon. This was more balanced than I remember - just absolutely delicious. I may have had more than I should have, but I was on the rebound from having missed the bottles (which sold out in an hour!).

Still pretty good.

Pretty good, strong resinous flavors but with a pleasant added touch of citrus flavors in the finnish.

A little too prickly to be refreshing for me.

Stronger bitter finish, bottle was sweetly bland by comparison.

I'm convinced that this batch is better on draft than in the bottle. The herbal bitterness I remembered was fully in presence, and offset the sweet berry very well.

Meh really not a fan of this one. The sour/vinegary/tangy flavors brought by the brett fermentation really doesnt mix well with the extra resinous hop flavors

A bit on the dry side for an Imperial Stout, which matches earlier impressions, but with a nice milky smoothness to the opening that makes this hard to dislike. On the thinner side for a beer of this strength, which, hoo-girl, it does have.

Quite enjoyable imperial stout with very dry and roasty flavors. It has somewhat of a thin texture. Quite boozy and strong.

Still very enjoyable with its blueberry muffin flavors and herbal bitterness.

Clean and crisp flavor profile with somewhat of a wet hops taste.

Very smooth and not too bitter. Presents a good mix of fruity flavors and herbal spices flavors.

This seems very different every year. This one was a lot like a sweet, dessert coffee drink, with just a bit of sourness. Still no real obvious barrel character in evidence.

Not sure if it was nitro vs CO2 or just the flavor in general, but this was very different than my memory from two years ago. Blueberry is just a hint, with a kind of pie crust malt sweetness taking the spotlight. The finish is a moderate herbal bitterness which I think is new, and actually quite appealing. This beer is a legitimate winner now, rather than an enjoyable curiosity.

Oak, vanilla, buttery caramel and molasses flavors. It's very sweet and a little bit boozy. Feels more like a barrel aged quad than a porter. Maybe a little bit too sweet.

Blueberry flavor reminds a lot of blueberry muffins. Hard to identify herbal taste, probably the catnip. End with a pleasing bitterness

Still better on draft. More bitter than I remembered.

I always appreciate when Black Raven puts out a cask that isn't just a differently-dry hopped IPA. Typical for cask, a lot of earthy, herbal notes from the hops, as well as a good, dry, dark chocolate flavor on top. The peppercorn notes clarify as the beer warms up, and while they're interesting they made some of the other flavors more "pokey" instead of balancing things out.

Lot of aromatic herbs flavors (dill, chive, oregano) some grassy/hay flavors. Interesting yeast bitterness. The mild sourness reminds a lot of white wine.

Very strong peppercorn flavors without any spiciness. Mixes pretty well with the beer's mild sweetness.

Slightly fruitier than I remembered, I think. A bit prickly on the hops, which brings to mind the Hochzeit for me.

I think I'm getting used to the cask thing, especially the nutty-funky hop flavors that emerge when there's little carbonation. With the Scotch ale, what you get is a complex but drinkable, mildly sweet beer. Less fruit and sugar than I expected. Bitterness builds up a bit over time.

Clean, fresh and crisp. Light resinous hops flavors.

Crisp but very resinous hops flavors. Not so sessionable.

Sweet opening with some fruity flavors. Ends with a caracteristic scotch ale bitterness. Quite good at first, but the mix sweet and bitter mix got annoying after a while.

Do they blend the barrel and add it to the beer once they're done? It felt just like drinking a piece of wood. At some point I was worried it would trigger my pollen allergies. Nonetheless it's a pretty good beer with very strong barrel aged traits, vanilla flavors. It's also quite boozy.

I could not identify what the indian spices were at all. The added flavors, if any really, were very very faint. The only thing I was getting was a slightly salty bitterness that lingered a little longer the standard hop bitterness, curry maybe?. Otherwise it's a well rounded mellower trickster IPA

A smoother sweeter more well rounded IPA. Not picking up anything out of the ordinary from the brettanomyces fermentation. I was expecting some tang or sourness... (Maybe they served regular cask trickster as an april's fool?)

An okay nitro stout , it has somewhat of a flat flavor profile except for a peculiar metallic taste.

Somehow this was presenting a lot more herbal flavors then I remembered. It also add a very resinous corriander bitterness to it that I did not seem to pick up the first time.

Very clean overall. It has this common beer taste I can't put a name on... wet hops, dank yeast, something?

The standard resin-and-hops bonanza that is Trickster, but with a bit of floral spice at the end. I think I would have liked that combination but for the sweet-bitter hit of the lemon that interrupts halfway through -- one of my least favorite of the cask components Black Raven seems to like using.

Reading these logs, it seems like this beer is nothing like it used to be. But maybe that's just me. This time it wasn't much like my memory of Pour les Oiseaux - less vinous, less funky, but with a clean, slightly bitter finish. The flavor is basically very good, but there's also a prominent coriander mustiness to the flavor, which I think pulls it down a little. "Wet sock" comes to mind.

Solid cereal taste, light but full, like a graham cracker. Light hop finish.

Presents a sweet cereal smell with hop hints. It opens with a sweet cereal flavor and slowly fades into mild hop bitterness and resinous hop flavors. Really liked this one, but the bitterness builds up a little bit too much.

Malty and caramel, and very much the 25% barleywine that it claims. A very American hop florality prevents it from tasting super-English, nor did it have the funky dankness of an English real ale, but still, this was an interesting and very enjoyable cask.

Smells a little bit like bubble gum. It presents a faint underlying sweetness coupled with a faint sourness. It has a moderately low bitterness. Bubble gum and floral flavors.

Felt very light overall, but shows a pretty strong carbonation. Presents very mild resinous hop flavors and ends with a moderatly strong bitterness.

A little bit more mild than the regular editions. It also has a more creamy texture. The same mild resinous hop bitterness is still present but is complemented by fresher long last cirtrus flavors. Has a very faint sweetness to it at the very end.

Has a mild bitterness which is short lived for an IPA. Presents mild resinous flavors with some very faint citrus flavors near the end.

I think this was a really successful cask offering. The fragrant citrus flavors complement the Wisdom Seeker very well, and everything is just well-balanced. Light carbonation, but not flat.

Powerfull dark fruits (raisins, dried cherries), roasted nuts and caramel flavors. Quite sweet and boozy.

The bitterness is tame for a double IPA, but it presents very crisp hop flavors. A faint sweet blueberry flavor appears right after the bitterness fades away. It gets more noticeable as your drink more. I believe I was getting some very faint tequilla flavors mixed in with the bitterness.

Opens with a bit of pine and a bit of fruit, a really fragrant typical IPA opening. Like lots of other Black Raven beers, though, this has a solid cereal backbone, almost pretzely. Bitter finish.

Wow, what a difference with the regular Trickster IPA! First of all it has a richer, smoother and thicker look and texture. It's hop bitterness is way more well rounded. It's rich in resinous, leafy, earthy hop flavors. There some faint citrus flavors in there as well. Near the end I could pick up a faint tropical fruits smell reminescent of pineapple.

More carbonated and clear than the cask version. Very strong straightforward hops bitterness. I did not really like it... it was somehow not crisp enough to pull off this kind of hoppiness.

Opens with a very syrupy sweetness and texture with honey like flavors. Very round floral and citrusy hoppiness that hits you in the end. Slightly funky smell.

Very appealing profound dark red color. Smells of red fruits and bubblegum. Presents light and pleasant wine flavors and sourness that marry pretty well with the stronger dark beer's roasty and yeasty flavors. Very enjoyable overall, but the bitterness of the beer gets unpleasant after a while.

A great dry and roasty porter overall. The coconut smells and flavors were really faint. I was expecting them to be more present.

Opens with definite red wine flavors, a buttery tannic fruitiness that more than balances the base beer. Some bitter yeast funk that reminds me of the recent Raven de Garde release, and some nontrivial amount of banana and clove finish off the flavor. I liked it, but do admit the red wine and overt sweet Belgian was a weird combination that never quite stopped being weird.

In a full glass, this was much more standard than the earlier taster made me think. Light like a session IPA but with a touch more resin, and a sweet cereal finish. Somehow, less weird made it less appealing to me... Not super interested in adding a new standard IPA to my life right now? (12 oz schooner)

Disappointed compared to previous times I've had it. Tastes like alcohol.

Now, this was odd. Not nearly as resinous as their regular IPA, with a lemon-pepper sweet wheat-funk finish. There's no wheat in the malt bill, so I'm not sure where those flavors are coming from. The only other beer with that kind of finish I can think of is Sam Adams Summer Ale, and this probably got there by accident. Like that other beer, I found this strangely appealing, but find it harder to imagine having it in larger quantities.

Fourth time having it, and I'm tasting less cognac barrel and more of a ribbon of syrupy umami... followed by booze. This reminds me a bit of what I must have thought the first time I had this. Same vintage, four different reactions. Maybe this beer is just better in the summer? Who knows?