Livery King Cole Porter

Brewed by The Livery
Style: Porter
Benton Harbor, Michigan USA

Serve in English pint, Shaker

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Hand pull. Dark brown/black with a small light tan head, fading. Chocolate, roast and light smoke in the nose. Taste is moderately sweet, lightly bitter with a touch of milk chocolate, some roast and light cola. Medium body is very soft with light carbonation. Excellent English style porter, even if it is rather high in ABV.

cask at the brewery, this version listed as 6.25% (beer hunters please note: my notes are months old) - Pours dark brown and has a light, roast malt aroma. The flavor is sweet roast malt and not much else going on there. It’s medium bodied and has minimal carbonation. Okay.

Has all of the necessary porter roastiness...chocolate and coffee, but just way too thinbodied and watered-down in mouthfeel to support those heavy flavor profiles.

Cask conditioned draft sample at brewpub. Poured dark brown color with an average light brown fizzy head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Good roasted coffee & caramel aroma. Medium to full body with a smooth texture. Modertate to heavy roasted woody flavor with a moderate to heavy bittersweet finish of average to long duration. Another strong drinkable beer.

Tasted 4/27/08. 6oz Cask conditioned sample from the brewpub. Dark brown hue, almost pitch. Taupe head. Good nose! Hoppy nose with hints of syrup and cocoa. Dark fruit and coffee. Anise and toasty. Low effervescence. Low acidity. Medium bodied and smooth. Smokey and malty. Dark dried fruits. Touch coffee flavor. Bittersweet chocolate. Rolling malt palate. Easy soft and well crafted.

Draft at the brewery. Dark black and mild coffee and bitterness. Not as creamy as i would have hoped for, slighly astringent in taste. Not for me.

On tap at the brewpub. Nitro. Pours pitch black with a light brown head. A bit of a twang in the nose with light roasted malt character. Tastes like iced coffee with creamer. Creamy medium body. Low carbonation. Dry finish. I’d bet the nitro is holding this beer back.

10oz Pour $3.25 King Cole Porter poured, well, black as coal. A small cap of a white head formed and fell quickly. Some mahogany highlights barely fought through. The aroma was a little disappointing. The expected roasted grain and some dark fruits were present and went well together but there was a noticeable fusal alcohol that reminded me of rubbing alcohol. This was porter I was in no way impressed with. The flavor was all wrong. Upfront there was the roasted grain and dark berriness that was in the aroma but mid-palate this beer became super dry and the burnt rubber/rubbing alcohol mixture came through until the finish. The dryness made the rubber/alcohol come through way to intensly. The dryness hurt the mouthfeel as well. Medium bodied with a slight chewiness. The dryness just left me parched. Not at all drinkable. It was a cool day and perfect for a porter but this was a drainpour. If I was at home this would have been dumped immediately but I tried to drink it hoping it would turn around. No such luck. It was served at the proper temperature though which is the only good thing about this beer. Guess I need to get samples from now before committing. 11/10/07

On tap at brewpub

This was my last rating before getting to try the Tripplebock and Cask Aged Tripplebock again. As such I was in a little but of a hurry but this beer didn’t deserve much attention. I believe it was on cask at the time. Perhaps that explains some of the weaknesses; perhaps it was just thin to begin with. Either way it felt like it was missing something even after repeated sips.

Aroma / Appearance - The deep brown body was very fluid for a porter. Cherry coke, vanilla, toffee and iced coffee create a sweet nose that reminds me of dark fruits. It stands out a little bit from your average porter.

Flavor / Palate - The first sip was a disappointment. Watery coffee filled my mouth then was followed with a smoky aftertaste. It reminded me of cherry coke left too long that had gone flat. Eventually I picked up some redeeming qualities of dark chocolate and apple butter but by then my attention had moved on. With a little more body this would be great; as it is I found it to be basically average.

From the cask at the brewpub - This was a bit of a disappointment. It looks fine, an extremely dark body with a smallish beige head that soon becomes a halo. The aroma has lightly roasted malts with a splash of milk chocolate and some coffee grounds. It’s quite thin, almost watery in the mouth. The flavor pretty well reflects the nose, but a lactic sourness jumps in near the finish. That distracts. It finishes on a mildly bitter note along with that touch of sourness.

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