Mudgee Porter

Brewed by Mudgee Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Mudgee, NSW, Australia

Serve in English pint, Stem glass

330ml bottle. Pours an almost completely opaque black, with the merest flash of chestnut. A huge beige head lasts very well, leaving decent lacing. Whilst it thus looks very promising, the beer is not anywhere near as good as it looks. The aroma is quite weak, although there are traces of dark chocolate and some less inspiring grainy notes. The initial flavour is one of extremely intense, high-cocoa dark chocolate, which is quite overpowering. This develops into a quite acidic lemon flavour, which dominates right through the finish. This over-strong flavour combination is not precisely pleasant, and nor is it even vaguely similar to any other porter I have tasted. I would recommend giving this one a miss.

From a 330ml bottle on 15/10/2011. Pours brown/black with a massive head to begin. Has a mild aroma of chocolate and a bit of fruit. Tastes unusual. While there are typical chocolate and roasty notes, there’s a distinct fruitiness to it, with raspberry particularly prominent. It’s let down by the palate, with a thin texture and too much carbonation. A bit confused and not a particularly good porter.

The experience of having this freshly poured from the tap is superior to serving from the bottle. At Mudgee Brewery this porter is served with a plate of dark chocolate pieces that compliment the chocolate and licorice flavours of the beer. A pleasure.

Really did not enjoy this beer. It has been discribed as being chocolate, coffee and liquorice in flavour. I didn’t get a glimance of this at all. I was getting heaps of grapefruit, raisins and maybe some caramalisation. It was like I was drinking a completely different beer to the bottle in was in. I wouldn’t call this a porter. A dark ale, even fruit beer. I wasn’t getting the carbonation problems as others have mentioned. I am starting to think my bottle my compromised.

33oml bottle. Super charged carbonation that exploded the tan foam into the glass. Crackling and fluff, the foam took a long while to settle. Tar black in colour and the large amount of foam detracted a bit from the appearance. Aromas of burnt malt and toffee with flavours to match. Not as robust as most porrters.

Very highly carbonated (perhaps over-carbed), resulted in a beer that is very difficult to pour, and harder to drink, at one point I had a pot of tan foam over one centimeter of dark beer. The aromas are hard to pick given the big head on this beer but there are some strange sweet yeasty smells. Taste is odd, my initial impression is raspberry, buggered if I know why, but it soon fades to roasty malts, dark chocolate and some licorice. Slightly acrid, thinner body is supported by the out of style carbonation but it works OK. It’s an unusual porter, may be not text book style but quite drinkable regardless.

They have not fixed the carbonation issue rendering the beer difficult to savour. It won’t even pour correctly into a glass. I incorrectly chastised my mother-in-law for wiping my glass with a t-towel. The extra gas stems from the brewery carbonating instead of letting the yeast do the work.

(Bottle) Yeasty aroma, initial mouthful produced sweet liqorice impression, probably this was a product of the yeast used, as the effect faded very rapidly. My bottle was ever so slightly overcarbonated, which gave it an acrid bite (not a fan of overcarbed dark beers ...) as it warmed up, I warmed to it as well. It is certainly quite roasty, not at all a sweet beer. Overall impression was not too bad. I wouldn’t seek it out though.