Meantime London Porter

Bottle from Real Ale, twickenham. Lovely dark ruby porter, smooth and easy-drinking, but then it opens up and has a lovely finish that lingers a long time, with licquirice, malt, and even the smoke from a forest fire. Roasted pine kernels from the fire, too! No feeling of the alcohol, so this could be dangerous! This brewery has a fine range of pastiche beers, I look forward to when they go for some all out experiments.

bottle: pours a nice dark chocolate brown with a foamy off white head. aroma is sweet like caramel with a little raostedness in it. the flavour is a suttle roasted chocolte and a little thin. it finishes with just a touch of bitterness and a little watery overall though a very nice porter that could be very sessionable.

75 cl bottle. Very dark brown with a beige head. Aromas are strong roast coffee with caramel malts beneath. Also has cocoa powder and earthy, peppery hops. Flavours are roast malts with liquorice and dark chocolate bitterness. Some hints of Winter fruit. Some dry woodiness with hints of peaty smokiness. Quite prickly on the palate with a dry peppery finish. I was expecting more of this, its good but a little thin in body.

(750ml bottle) Pours a dark brown body with a medium tan head. Aroma of chocolate, roastiness, and hint of dark fruit. Flavor of roastiness, coffee, and nuts.

From the bottle - Poured a head that was light brown and the body a nice dark brown. Aroma was malty with coffee, caramel, and chocolate. Flavor was sweet from the chocolate and lightly bitter and hoppy. Very smooth. Great finish. Tried this at a beer tasting and purchased a bottle ($9 with Beer Club discount) right after the event. This was a very good porter.

750 bottle from Sainsburys. Very dark brown/ruby colour with a generous, but diminishing, beige head. Heavily roasted malt aroma, with a fair ration of coffee. Solid bitter chocolate and burnt malt flavour. Some liquorice. Developing robust bitterness on the finish, with touches of chewy fruit. Fairly light mouthfeel, with plenty of hops in evidence. But lets not forget that this is not supposed to be a modern pseudo-stout rendition of the porter style but a recreation of an 18th century recipe. So a full mouthfeel is not to be expected, although perhaps the bite in the original would have come more from lactic sourness than the hoppy bitterness exhibited here. And I’m not sure the original would have had as much coffee and chocolate in evidence. I suspect some tweaking of the old recipe may taken place as this beer was primarily aimed at the US market. So, something of a hybrid, but an exceptionally delicious one. I thought this was a beautifully executed beer.

great cabonation for a porter. roast toffee malt is the strongest taste, didnt really taste any chocolate like in a stout... very good [p.s. this was on of my first ratings... need to re-rate and maybe make a little bit more sense ;) ]

Bottle: Fruit, cocoa, and nut aroma; musty and fairly sweet initail flavor, somewhat burnt and roasty, bitter-chocolate and acidic finish; slightly watery and undercarbonated body, but this is not detracting, it makes it very drinkable; quite balanced. Yum.