Three Floyds Alpha Klaus Christmas Porter

Thanks to Walt for this beer. Bottle, about a year old. Poured dark brown with ruby highlites and a fizzy tan head. Sweet invigorating aroma of fresh ground coffee, flowers, grapefruit, and orange. Taste is of some light coffee, a bit of sweetness, with grapefruity hops showing up in the finsih and succeeding bouts of gastral eruption. Gets sweeter as it warms. Not as bitter as I thought it might be. Overall pretty easy drinking, with my only detraction from this very good beer being perhaps it could have stood to be a tad more aggressive.

22 oz. bottle - Pours thick oily black with extremely thick frothy tan head that does not go away. Lacing stays from the top of the glass all the way to the bottom. Aroma is sweet and chocolatey with roasted coffee and a hint of hopiness. Palate is thick but not syrupy....oily smooth. Upfront taste is bittersweet dark chocolate and coffee. Follow through is heavy roasted malty sweetness with a touch of hops. Aftertaste is dark roasted coffee mixed with a good amount of hops. The hops really become more evident as it warms up. Great porter with nice balance of malt and hops. This Christmas Porter is not normal!

Pours an extremely dark brown-black with a thin light tan head. Aroma is a combination of robust piney hops and chocolate and roasty smells. The palate felt thinner than what I expected from a beer that looks and smells like that. Taste was not as aggressively hoppy as the smell, but still had a some bite at the start and the finish was a dry, hoppy, roasty, and lingers pleasantly on the palate.

Pours near black with reddish hues. Aroma of chocolate malt, chocolate, and spicy pine cone hops. Taste is dark and malty with plenty of chocolate. Mouthfeel is full bodied with moderate carbonation. Pretty tasty, but I was not amazed by this beer. I think there might be a little 3F bias going on ’round here.

Dark black with brown head. Aroma is of dark malts with lots of hops. Nice dark malts, slightly spicey, with big bitter hop finish. Not the traditional porter but good.

Bottle (2005). Coffee malt, dark chocolate and astringent hops aroma. Dark black with an explosive giant tan head. Creamy dark chocolate malt and astringent charcoal flavor - moderate hops finish a la 3F. A very full bodied porter - excellent.

1400th rating! Bottle shared with HogTownHarry and GregClow -- courtesy of HogTownHarry. Pours a very dark brown with an average size foamy light-brown head. Aroma: Wow, that smells awesome! Roasted malt, chocolate, coffee, lots of earthy hops -- just wonderful. Flavour is an interesting and flavourful combination of hops and chocolate that works really well. Medium to full bodied. This is really friggin’ good stuff and definitely one of the best Porters I’ve had the pleasure to have. Thanks for sharing Harry!

Bottle (650ml - 2005 vintage). With blankboy and GregClow, my bottle via trade with kmweaver. Thick, opaque black with a decent creamy beige head. Lovely roast malt/resiny hop aroma ... like hot cocoa with marshmallows, coffee and floral hops - somehow it works. Taste - yummy - like swiss milk chocolate and tons of hops. Solid body for a porter, almost oily, nice lingering astringent hops, restrained alcohol presence, a pleasant shifting malt/hop finish, left a milky coating and aftertaste on my tongue. Really, really good stuff.