Dundee Porter

Dundee Brewing Company
Brewed at Genesee Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Rochester, New York USA

Serve in English pint, Stem glass

UPDATED: MAR 27, 2010
Date: February 20, 2010
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting
Appearance: clear dark brown, fine beige head, drippy lace
Aroma: rich chocolate aroma with a honey caramel sweetness
Flavor: rich chocolate flavor, honey sweetness
Overall: a bigger honey brown
Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 13/20
Rating: 3.2/5.0
Drinkability: 8/10
Score: **+ /4

Bottle. First beer in this pack that is good. Pure black and pure good. Wish I had more.

Appearance: Pours a clear, dark brown body crowned with two fingers of light beige foam. Meager splotches of lace on the way down. Smell: Predominate nose smelling of dark malts with notes of chocolate, licorice dust, and dark fruits with a fine, fine whiff of spice in the distant background. Taste: Dark maltiness with a touch of unsweetened chocolate powder, light roast, and a hint of licorice. Lightly sweet at the start, but washes out for a faintly sourish, vaguely fruity accent hinting at raisins. Hop profile with a touch of spiciness and a restrained bitterness. Splash of mineral water. Dry maltiness on the latter half until the finish. One of those beers that doesn’t improve with any warmth, quite the opposite, in fact, so, don’t waste a minute with this one. Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. Medium carbonation. Drinkability: A basic but acceptable porter. It offers light tastes with a light body aimed for ease of drinkability, one would assume.

Underwhelming porter--tastes primarily of smoke and roast, with a bit of caramel and coffee, but nothing else...lacks some of the giddy syrupy flavor of the Baltic porters, but not necessarily any better for it (10312)

Very malty on the nose and also as the first flavor. A little of the wine-ish taste that I don’t like in beers. (Which is why I don’t like Sam Smiths). Dissipates somewhat, but still leaves a sweetness. Not my cup of chowder.

A weak attempt at a porter. Overly roasted malt flavor, thin on flavor and depth with a watery finish.

It’s amazing how just a tweak in a recipe can have such an effect on the taste of a beer. I love brown ales and stouts, but I’ve just never been able to appreciate the porter style. I was hoping JW Dundee’s Porter would bring me around, but even this brewery’s reputation for quality couldn’t.

POUR, COLOR AND AROMA

Porters are basically stouts with a much thinner, lighter body so it’s no surprise JW Dundee’s Porter pours to a flat black color (actually, extremely dark maroon) with a thin, caramel-colored head. The head does not last very last and has no significant taste or other notable features. There is no carbonation action present and the beer is reminiscent of old, flat soda. Additionally, this beer is almost odorless with only a faint trace of deep-roasted and smoky malts.

TASTE

There’s a fine line between truly good roasted malts and the niche taste of porters and scotch ales. Unfortunately, JW Dundee’s Porter falls on the wrong side of this taste spectrum. Its initial flavor reminds me of cough syrup in that it’s very bitter and leaves a strong aftertaste. There’s a hint of a smoky flavor to the palette, although I’ve tasted much smokier (i.e. Sam Adam’s Scotch Ale).

Usually I gravitate towards dark beers since they have more flavor, but even this porter is fairly bland. The taste it does have it off-putting and is very reminiscent of any kind of “bock” beer. I’d like to think I’m a connoisseur of beers, but even I couldn’t appreciate the taste here.

FINISH

Beers with off-putting tastes usually don’t finish very well, but the opposite is true of JW Dundee’s Porter. It is extremely smooth, much like a black lager or a brown ale. There is not bite, most likely due to the fact it has so little carbonation.

BODY

Porters look a lot heavier in body than they actually are. Obviously, it’s heavier than any generic lager or even the lighter ales, but isn’t quite as weighty as you might expect. Since it’s not very pleasant to drink altogether, the issue of its weight is irrelevant.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I know there are beer snobs out there than can appreciate porters, but as much as I’d like to think I’m one of them, I just cannot figure out the appeal of a beer that tastes like cough syrup.

Pours dark brown (not black) with barely any head. Aroma got roasted malts action and a little bit of chocolate. Taste got much of the same, but the taste is thin, and lacks complexity. High alcohol content is a good thing, but this beer is not very drinkable. Way too watery as well. I mean, I got it for free, so I don’t care, but this was not one of the better beers that I have had and certainly one of the lower quality porters.