Alaskan Smoked Porter

2007 bottling. Black with a frothy 2" head. Nice aroma is saline smoked salmon and beef jerky. Medium body. Good porter flavors of dry blackened malts with smoked meat and charred camp fire wood. Classic smoked beer here.

Black bodied with a tan head. Aroma is malty sweet, similar to malted milk balls, and brown sugary. Flavor has a nice roasted smoke up front with a bit of chocolate.

2007 bottle, thans to Harry. black body with some small head, nose is smokey campfire with some nice sweet dark malts. flavor is similar smokey with sweet choc malts smoke is not overpowering but very nice , small amount of bitterness finishes. very very nice!!!

19-Jan-08 (Draft: Connoisseur’s Session, 2008 Great Alaskan Beer and Barley Wine Festival in Anchorage, AK) 1996 vintage What a treat to try a 12-year-old Smoked Porter. It’s very smoky, but more campfire than bacon. Also very roasty, but only a medium level of bitterness. Dry on the palate, not very sweet at all. Medium-full in body and medium in carbonation. The nose is smoky but less roasty. Dark-brown, almost opaque, and the small, dark-tan head settles to a wide ring. This beer has held up wonderfully, so I’ll keep holding onto my private stash of bottles. (8, 4, 8, 4, 16 = 4.0)

21-Jan-06 (22 oz bottle: $4.99 at BevMo in La Jolla, CA) 2005 bottling Revisiting this beer just to see if I still like it as much, and yes, I absolutely believe I do. Big, roasty maltiness, sweet chocolate and molasses work in unison with the strong smokiness to absolutely thrill my taste buds. The smoke is pretty powerful, but not as intense or dominant as in the Schlenkerla Rauchbier lineup. Plenty of roasty bitterness balances out the sweetness. Some yeasty flavor in the background. Aroma is sweet, roasty, malty and smoky, but because of the level of sweetness, it doesn’t smell like smoked meats. Body is rich, thick and heavy, well-carbonated, smooth and velvety on the palate. Very dark brown, pretty much black through the center, ruddy brown highlights at the edges. Light tan head rises to over half an inch, but settles fairly quickly to a wide ring, leaving spotty, patchy lacing on the glass. Just an incredible beer...it doesn’t get much better than this. (9, 4, 9,5, 18 = 4.5)

14-Sep-04 (16 oz bottle: $4) 2003 Vintage Sweet Jesus! A strong smoky aroma emanates from the bottle as soon as the twist-off cap is removed; It pours so thick and viscous, it’s like motor oil; It’s so black and opaque, the motor oil comparison is still quite apt; Once in the glass, the smoky aroma is intense, like walking through into a recently burned out building; The flavor is, you guessed it, intensely smoky, one of the smokiest beer I’ve tasted; It’s fairly sweet, but not overly so, and what’s extraordinary, is that this beer starts out dry, bitter, chocolaty and very dark roasted (burned is more like it), but the sweetness picks up strength in the finish -- very unusual; With how viscous the beer pours, the full bodied palate isn’t as heavy or sticky as I expected; Dark tan head is of modest size on the pour, and it’s very slow to form through the thick viscosity of this beer, but once formed, it demonstrates very good retention; Some of the head sticks to the glass, but quickly fades away, leaving no trace of lacing; However, with all the superlatives of this beer, the lack of lacing is of no consequence to me, and doesn’t diminish the appearance score because the absolute blackness and head retention of this porter is very impressive; I thought Stone’s Smoked Porter was a pretty outstanding effort, but this beer makes Stone’s taste like Porter Lite, and we know that’s not the case; I mean, wow, this is an incredible beer, I’m totally blown away; It has to be a top 20 beer all time for me. (10, 5, 9, 4, 18 = 4.6)

Dark brown with a small, beige colored head. Nose has roast and chocolate/oat and a just-right amount of smoke. The smoke really hits in the flavor, and it couples with the roast nicely to leave sweet milk chocolate and slight fruit in the aftertaste. Creamy medium body with a little alcohol to liven it up, and only slightly bitter. A nice, not-overdone smoked.