Thirsty Dog Old Leghumper

Brewed by Thirsty Dog Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Akron, Ohio USA

Serve in English pint, Stem glass

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Wonderful, tasty porter. Nice mouth-feel and roasty flavor. I love sweet, malty flavors and lower hops in my porter and this one fits the bill.

Rich aroma has notes of caramel, molasses and roast quality coffee with a touch of licorice. It pours an opaque warm sable just a couple whiskers above black and a fairly thick and fluffy light tan head. Flavor has good smoky, molasses, coffee and caramel notes. Dusty texture has slightly above average body but not a whole lot of fizz. This one is worth sniffing out.

12 oz bottle pours black with tan head. Aroma of malts and chocolate. Taste is roasted malt, coffee and chocolate. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

12oz Bottle, tasted at RIFT Porter tasting. Compared to a number of the other porters we had tonight, this one came across as thinner and metallic. I think there might be a slight stale element going on, but overall the body washed out and didn’t give me a good, rich deep roast porter character.

3.1 Bottle pour. Very slight head. Maybe this bottle is old. I’m not getting any chocolate or roastiness. Mine was smooth, but seemed watery and dull.

Nice subtle porter smell. Pours a dark brown with a moderate head. Rather light for a porter, it’s got a nice subtle roasted flavor to it.

12oz bottle poured into an english pint. Pours almost black with minimal head. Aroma is mostly chocolate and coffee. Taste is light bitter. Coffee and chocolate. Medium bodied with a thick texture. Lively carbonation and a long finish. Overall, awesome. I would love to drink this again.

Originally reviewed: 5/21/09. Pours a deep black with a touch of ruby on the edges. Small tan head on top. Some lacing. Smells of roasted cocoa, and pumpernickel bread. Nice sweet smell. Mouthfeel is smooth and creamy. I realize there is a fine line between some porters and stouts, but this is the most stout-like porter I’ve had to date. Drinking this blind, I would have guessed it a stout. Big malty chocolate flavor that finishes bready with just a slight hop kick. Very well-done. Good porter.

I received a 12oz bottle in a trade with a friend in Ohio (thanks, James!). I poured it into a tulip glass.

Appearance: Seemingly opaque black or brown with maroon highlights. Forms a dark tan, foamy frothy head which laces and retains pretty well.

Smell: Very sweet aroma of chocolate milk and a Dr. Pepper-like cola.

Taste: If you ever needed a beer to show the difference between a porter and a stout, Thirsty Dog Old Leghumper is it. This is a little bigger and notably sweeter than your average porter, but lacks the bitter ending you get from a stout. It does have a lot in common with a standard milk stout, though. A sweet, creamy, chocolate milk-like taste throughout. There are some earthy, fruity flavors through the middle, especially of prune and vanilla bean - which help keep the palate from being alcoholic YooHoo. There’s a mild bitterness just as the beer finishes with a very faint coffee taste, but hardly anything in terms of roasted/toasted malt.

So it’s a tasty beer to be sure, but the palate is decidedly simple. The sweet and fruity flavors are tasty, but many drinkers mind find it cloying. I liked it throughout but couldn’t help but feel something was missing. It’s not really chocolaty enough to be a dessert beer, but is a tad too sweet and a tad too big to be sessionable. It’s a good beer to buy a six pack of to have at the ready, though.

Drinkability: What’s probably the most impressive about Thirsty Dog Old Leghumper is how easy of a beer it is to drink. The mouthfeel is thinner and more fizzy than you’d expect, but the texture is soft and velvety to make for a very comfortable mouthfeel. It’s surprising, actually, that it’s 6.7% ABV since it doesn’t seem to have the weight or energy of something that big. It’s dangerously drinkable in that sense.

Very dark porter, with a smell of roasted malt so strong it reminded me of burned popcorn (in a good way). The taste starts smooth and smokey, and then finishes with a bite that had kind of an anise-and-coffee thing going on.

This is a decent porter. Malty, oatmeal aroma with a creamy tan head and an opaque body. Taste is initially just bitter which is somewhat unpleasant but it soon fades into roast, chocolate, oatmeal and a lot of malt. If you like porters, give it a try but if you’re not too into dark beer, wait for a better specimen.