Bells Porter

Brewed by Bells Brewery
Style: Porter
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

Serve in English pint, Stem glass

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Toast and balsamic in the nose, dark opaque brown color, light tan head. Roastedness and smoke in the body with a hint of licorice. A little farty and buttery. Bells is just a great brewery but this one surprised me - not so good. Did I get a bad sample?

This was a very balanced porter...definitely something that I would come back to again.

Dark murky brown with a foamy head. Aroma is very grainy but surprisingly not all that roasty. Flavor is the same, grains are fairly bitter and just a bit linear. The malt is just not enough to balance out the grain. Tastes yeasty, the sediment at the bottom bears witness to this.

Looks black but when held up to the light it is a blood red orange. Tan head, quarter inch. Smells like hops and alcohol. A little bitterness in the taste and something else I can't place. The flavor is tinny, watery and sour. Not bad but doesnt seem dark enough for a porter.

UPDATED: AUG 21, 2011 I am a fan of this brewer but tend to gravitate towards stouts more than porters. I have only happened to try this one a couple of times. A bit too dry for my taste +++ Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer pours black with a large dark brown head. The aroma is bitter and lightly roasty. The flavor is remarkably bitter with a dry, toasty malt flavor. toasted flavor lingers. There is no sweetness to this beer at all.

Average, not the best Bell’s beer. Smoky finish but bland overall. The nose lies.

A good basic porter - and if memory serves, much better now than it was five years ago. Malt is controlled nicely - there are hints of dark chocolate, coffe, brown sugar and currant, but nothing dominates. Decent hops. Single thing that I didn’t like was the nose, which is reminiscent of smoky burning rubber!. But that doesn’t come through in the taste, which is, to come full circle, ’good basic porter’.

This bells beer didn't do it for me. It had a nice roasty porter aroma, but the mouthfeel was off a little, and the typical Bells graininess was all over this one. Not really a bad beer, but certainly not up to par with other Bells beers.

Black color. Light aroma, some caramel, roasted malt and paperboard. Roasted malt caramel and malt taste; very light coffee presence in the bitter finish. Ordinary.

This porter was a little disappointing. It was a little too light in body and a little too light on flavor. There were definitely some notes of chocolate and dark roasted coffee, but they were just a little too subtle. The finish was the best part of this beer. It offered the most as far as body and flavor were concerned. The tan head lasted only a few moments and left only a minimal amount of lacing around the glass. There really wasn’t much to the nose of this beer, either. Again, there were some small and subtle hints of chocolate, coffee and vanilla. But it just lacked any real noteworthy punch.