Anchor Porter

Brewed by Anchor Brewing Company
Style: Porter
San Francisco, California USA

Deep black color, large thick creamy head. Roasted malt aroma. Deep rich roasted malts and flavor. Coffee and chocolate flavor. Slightly sweet. Good hop to malt balance. Mouthfeel is full and round. Finish is smooth and slightly hoppy. Aftertaste is slightly bitter, with a very slight metallic tinge. Nice tasting porter, smooth and very drinkable.

This brew poured a medium head of fine to medium sized light brown bubbles that were mostly lasting and left a good lacing with a opaque black brown body and no apparent carbonation. Its aroma was mild with notes of malt and a mild alcohol smell. Its mouthfeel is initially kind of biting, from the hops, and finishes with a mild alcohol burn. The flavor is mild initially and then the alcohol flavor takes over. I can also taste some licorice in the flavor, but not much else. I don't get the typical malt and roasted caramel or coffee flavors from this porter and it has more hops than most. I seem to find myself bucking the trend on this one as I feel it is not the best example of the style. On the redeeming side, I think it has a higher ABV than listed as I can feel the buzz from just a half a bottle.

Bottle. Thick motor oily black color. Head was medium and very dark creamy like. Duration of head was medium disappearing. Impressive array of flavors hits the nose at first sniff. Aroma was liquorish, slight smoke and roasted, light coffee and chocolate with some light hops catachrestic in there like floral and herbs and yeasty notes like leather, earthy. Medium to full bodied. Flavor was medium bitter, with a bitter finish.

Poured a midnight red with a standard head. Nice little aroma, reminding me of a neighborhood coffee shop. Flavor is magnificent coffee, toffee, and dark baked fruits. Excellent porter. (#2643, 1/7/07)

Bottle shared with Janis. Black, brown head. Very nice malty, burned malts, sweetness, raisins and hop.

Black with fine white head. The texure is rather filling and creamy. Liqourice and a bit caramel. The carbonation is medium and the beer when enters the mouth is very smooth. Easy drinkable porter(Almost no smoke). Pleasant & good!

(Bottled) Very dark cola-brown with a smallish, tight and somewhat lacy, beige head. The aroma is quite a bit burned-malty, but nicely chocolate-licoricey with a strong hop presence. Flavor has also chocolate and salty licorice, plus sweet-syrupy maltiness, but especially when colder also a bit too much color malt, making the flavor burned and ashy. As it warms, the sweet malt takes over, and burnedness fades accordingly. Medium to full-bodied, slicky and ashy palate with a sticky, dry and pleasantly hoppy finish. Seems like a beer with many faces: thin and ashy when cold - sweet-syrupy, thick, and Baltic Porter -like when warmer. Very nice, but not quite world-class. (About a year old bottle, BBE 2005, was 7-4-8-4-16=3.9) Very, very dark, reddish brown color with a light brown, fading head. Quite dry, very roasty, salty and slightly red-wineous aroma with some caramel and alcohol. Initially sweetish, roasted-malty, slightly port-wineous flavor with grassy hops. Turns dry, roasted and slightly bitter towards the finish, and finally ends sweetish, bitter and sugary. Medium to full-bodied, low-carbonated and wineous, sticky palate. A tasty, high-quality, port-wineous porter - maybe a bit thin in body.

Bottle. Dark beer with a tan lacing around the glass. Smoked malt, licorish, sweet fruit. Thin carbonation and mildly hopped finish.