What's that it looks nice

Strong and dark is how my missus likes 'em. It does mean that there's always imperial stout in stock, as there should be in every properly-run household. And occasionally there's something new for me to beg a taste of. Here's two such.

Wander Beyond's Half Moon is a big ol' imperial stout of 12% ABV and includes oranges, cacao nibs and vanilla as well as the usuals. They've hopped it with Mandarina Bavaria, but I imagine that's just for thematic cohesiveness since it's unlikely to be discernible under everything else. It smells like an imperial pastry stout: that mix of heavy caramel, milk chocolate and wafer biscuits. The texture is surprisingly light, with a busy fizz. On the flavour, oranges are conspicuous by their absence. It goes big on the chocolate, which doesn't sit well with the assertive carbonation. The sweetness, bitterness and savoury side are all what you'd get from dark chocolate or cocoa powder, and there's only the faintest hint of Jaffa Cake orangeiness on the finish. I'm down on gimmicks in beer generally; poorly rendered gimmicks like this are unforgivable.

Origin of Darkness strikes me as less ambitious. This is from Collective Arts, in collaboration with Mikkeller. There are a bunch of them, but the one in front of me is an 11.3% ABV bourbon-aged imperial stout with almond milk and coffee. It smells burnt; a very studenty aroma of black toast and sweaty laundry. Not a good start. The flavour picks up on the positive nutty elements, with hazelnut in particular coming though, plus chocolate and caramel for a broad Snickers effect. It's weighty without being hot, which is good, but the basic strong stout is somewhat lost under the bells and whistles. This is very much built for the novelty-chaser, and that fact it's one of a whole series of similar efforts only serves to confirm that. I'm not in a rush to try the rest. You will know from the description is this is your sort of thing or not; there are no surprises.

Thank you dear, but no thanks on both of these.