Collint (452), Sylva, North Carolina, USA Apr 14, 2008 Bottle, thanks TikiE. Pours a dark black with a quick diminishing tan head. Aroma is sweet/bitter chocolate and roast. Flavor is mostly roast and finish of choco. Tastes what an old style porter should taste. Decent porter but theres much better TikiE (360), Sylva, North Carolina, USA Apr 14, 2008 Nice porter! Pours a dark brown color with a tan lacing. Smells of chocolate and has a fine balance of chocolate and malts. One of my favorite porters! kidmartinek (972), austin, Texas, USA Apr 12, 2008 A dark brown beer, with an initially continously bubbling head, then settling down to a few inches. Smells very malty with a hint of tofee. Nice light tan head, superb lacing. Flavor is very malty, chocolately, light at the same time. Finish is clean. tgncc (796), Bellmore, New York, USA Apr 12, 2008 First of all, love the bottle. The aroma is typical to a porter, a nice roastiness and maltiness. Appearance is brown/black, but thinnner and more translucent than a normal porter. A mildly sweet, chocolate, roasty flavor gives way to a real roastiness on the palate. Medium mouthfeel. Decent porter, but not the best. FlacoAlto (2473), Tucson, Arizona, USA Apr 8, 2008 Pretty well carbonated beer, a careful pour produces a three finger thick, darkish tan colored head in my 25cl tulip glass. The beer is a deep, dark brown / almost black colored brew, but it does show a brilliantly clear, dark ruby hue when held up to the light. The head has an impressive structure to it (dense and creamy), as it slowly subsides it forms some really neat structures as well as a dense lacing layer on the sides of my glass. The aroma has a nice fruitiness to it up front, but this takes on notes of over-ripe, almost soured fruit when you start to explore. There is a touch of nuttiness to the aroma and some light roasted notes as well as some toasted bread notes. There is also a faint mustiness here that mixes with the over-ripe fruit aromatics.
Fairly sweet tasting, but has an astringent, roast grain flavor to it that helps to balance this out. Flavors of cocoa powder, a touch of black coffee and black toast notes are noticeable all of which help to provide a sort of bitterness to balance the up front sweetness. Somewhat light bodied, enough to be quaffable, but not so much that this doesn’t have a soft, viscous heft to it as it slides down the throat. The sweetness accents some light fruitiness that provides flavors of raisins, some berry flavors and perhaps a touch of fig-like notes.
Given that the roast character is not huge here, I am quite surprised how astringent and bitter the roast grain character comes off. Still this is a fairly tasty brew, it is just a bit out of balance. As the beer warms up a bit some of the astringent bitterness seems to mellow out a bit, though it is still there.
Purchased: <a href=http://www.ratebeer.com/Places/ShowPlace.asp?PlaceID=698>Plaza Liquors, Tucson AZ
Chapel (329), Levittown, New York, USA Apr 8, 2008 I can’t say that this is my favorite beer. It was very textbook with light bits of coffee and roasted malts with a dark pour with a tan head. Bitterness is present, but not easy to detect. However, I can’t say too much bad about something that represents its stile so well. Ibrew2or3 (2714), Safety Harbor, Florida, USA Apr 4, 2008 The British brewers always seem to have really cool bottles and this one is no exception. It pours dark brown with semi firm mocha head. It has a mild yet spot on aroma with rich roasty malts drifting into burnt malts. The taste is very similar to the nose starting with mild malt astringency before rich roasted malts, mild caramel and mild burnt malts build to midway. Into the finish chocolate malts are noticed as the burnt malts build to a tepid level and overtake the flavor. KnN (714), Greenbelt, Maryland, USA Apr 1, 2008 Kind of a toasted nut aroma, possibly from the malt? Pours a deep brown color with a nice tan head. The toasted malt characters follow through in the flavor as well. Nice lingering mouth feel. Hint of chocolate, but has a really nice finish. Touch of hops, but not bitter at all. Good beer.
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