Labatt Porter

Brewed by Labatt Breweries (InBev)
Style: Porter
London, Canada

Serve in English pint, Stem glass

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I had to pick it up. Couldn’t just leave it undisturbed as it should be...
Vegetable, grain aroma. Yay DMS.Dark brown with light tan fizzy carbonation - looks very much like a cola. Unfortunately the comparison ends there. This is much sweeter than any cola I’ve ever had and thinner also. Extremely unpalatable. Mild chalky roastiness drowning in pea soup with so much sugar added that perhaps you won’t notice it. Abort! Abort! The experiment has gone wrong. The sole reason this gets any points at all is because it’s not completely wretched - but it is darn close. Bottle (labelled simply Labatt Porter).

Ok, first, I cant belive that this is called a porter, that’s almost as bad as calling kieths an i.p.a. Black and thick {instead of deep porter brown}. low carbonation. 5% alcohol, far too strong for the style. Roasted barley, makes this a stout. Sweet cloying flavour, slimy mouthfeel, mild hop, sweet coffie second taste. Truly offensive aftertaste. Ya like porter, avoid this one. Ya like stout? Avoid this one. Guinness? STAY AWAY! However, if you like caribian stouts, this one will probably keep you happy.

Glad I still have my notes for this - sampled June 11, 2004, purchased in Cap Rouge, QC, assuming it’s the 2003 version. Dark brown colour with a frothy and fizzy fully diminishing off-white head. Cola-type look. Hmmm...a porter that smells vaguely like a malt liquor, that can’t be good. Grainy, corn, vinous, and alcohol aroma. No roast, no coffee, no chocolate. This is almost as bad as calling Keith’s an IPA. Corn, red wine, and cola flavours, and a weird rubbery-type finish. Oily and slightly syrupy mouthfeel.

Bottle. Wow, only 5 ratings? Wow, discontinued, now revived? Wow, WHY?? Starts out tolerable -- fizzy whitish head (though unstable), gray-black body. On second thought, not so appetizing-looking. Minimal chocolate-soapy nose isn’t awful....sickly-sweet saccharine-chocolate candy body is retch-inducing, though, as is the syrupy mouthfeel. Godawful, whoever thought to bring this back should never be allowed to even drink beer again.

UPDATED: DEC 6, 2004 Dark brown in colour. Aroma was slightly malty, some chocolate and caramel but still chemical. Flavour tasted fake to me - was caramel added to one of their other beers? - quite sweet as well. Very thin and watery body for a porter, flat cola like mouthfeel. The finish coated my mouth, quite sweet and quick. Very bad example.

2003 Vintage. Dark brown w/ swirling, frothy finger of beige foam. Sweet malty, milk chocolate nose w/ some fruity (cherry) notes. Creamy feel. Rich, rounded flavour of milk chocolate, licorice, & cherry liqueur. A decent beer from Labatt’s--who’da thunk it.

My first Porter with Twist Off cap! Light sweet, medium dark malt, soft creamy coffee (a la Paradiso). Brown pours medium creamy head. Very sweet porter, almost like Okocim Porter, but less the substance and alcohol. To sweet malts add plenty of minerals . Short malted finish . As it get warmer sweetness is subdued by roasted choco . To bad it had thin body .

Sweet coffee aroma and a hint of chocolate, deep brown, crimson at the edges, pours a tiny tan head. Sweet chocolate malt taste, a good bitter aftertaste. Bitter and sweet? Pretty good. Thanks to joey_capps for sharing this one year old!

Re-rate info - <em>OK I just got an update from Oakes explaining why I appear to be the first to rate this "discontinued-now-perhaps recontinued-beer." Perhaps one day the many veterans who have had it before me will add their two-cents in also but for now I will leave the story below for your enjoyment or derision.</em>

I can’t believe I’m the first to rate this - that requires a little story. I was up at the cottage this past summer and my buddy and I had nothing but golf and drinking in our future. Except that while we were out golfing our partners did the drinking. Since it was a holiday weekend we realized we had to act quickly to replenish ourselves.Valiantly Lisa and Roz volunteered to make the trip across the Ottawa River to a little corner store in small town northern Quebec. Returning home after a great day of golfing Rick and I were surprised to find this beer as one of the restocking purchases. I hadn’t heard of it but I don’t really care about Labatt and there is always a different selection available in Quebec so I thought nothing of that. Now that I see no-one has rated it though....it makes it a very cool purchase by my honey.

Ok then. Basic porter brown-black colour with a bubbly tan head. Rubyish tones when held up to the light - not bad looking. Kind of resinous and sweet initially. Coffee and chocolate are present along with some licorice and caramel. The problem is that it is very thin and seems kind of like it sprang forth from the same twisted thinking that saw Molson’s add caramel to the Export formula and try to pass it off as a dark micro-brew. By Labatt standards it’s pretty good, but by porter standards it isn’t.