(Lillesand, NORWAY) – Norwegian brewers, Nogne O, are nearly ready to send the Second Edition of Dark Horizon Imperial Stout to the U.S. According to Head Brewer, Kjetil Jikiun, around 12,000 bottles have been sitting at the brewery since January, some of which will soon be imported through the Shelton Brothers. This is double the production of the first edition.

Dark Horizon First Edition was an extremely successful batch considering that it landed in the top 25 at one point on RateBeer prior to ‘retirement,’ still remains in the top 100 at Beer Advocate, and also won a gold medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup. However, Jikiun notes that there are differences between the two batches as well as the third one, currently in the last stage of fermentation and likely to be bottled this December (15,000 bottles are projected for the Third Edition). The first batch used a lot of black and chocolate malt; roasted barley was more utilized for round #2, and now the brewery has made brown and smoke malts more prominent in the latest one.

Notes on the new collaboration with Toshi Ishii of Yoho Brewing in Japan, and formerly of Stone Brewing, are coming shortly. I hope to have an update on the Tyttebaer collaboration with Mikkeller next month.