Atwater Vanilla Java Porter

Brewed by Atwater Block Brewery
Style: Porter
Detroit, Michigan USA

12oz bottel poured into a tumbler. AVJP pours very dark brown with a quickly settling head. it smells like coffee and vanilla. The vanilla is pretty over-the-top and the coffee tastes more like grounds than beans or the drink itself. This is a perfectly fine beer to drink in a hotel in a strange city (like I’m doing now) but it isn’t something I’d want to have around the house on a regular basis.

On tap at Magoos. Nice straightforward, not much head or lacing, dark amber, vanilla is present and a roght balance, a little sweet but fairly clean finish.

Incredibly sweet, almost too much so. The vanilla is more subtle than I expected, and I’m not entirely crazy about the coffee aspect. But it’s pleasant and not bad, and it does smell pretty awesome. The lacing looks good and is thin but grippy. The thin mouthfeel was initially a little unexpected, since all the porters I’ve had in the past were thicker, but I’ve since found some good ones that were thin too. I’ve warmed up to the flavor balance on my second tasting. Although very sweet, it’s good, and the coffee notes really work. It’s like the vanilla coffee equivilant of Young’s Double Chocolate Stout.

What the hell went wrong here? Vanilla Java porter, pretty run of the mill drink here, but did they use sour milk? Strong in appearance and palate but really below average in every other regard, down right terrible tasting.

Dark red-black pour with a tan head. Weird spicy aroma, almost hot sauce like. Flavor of wood, roasted malts, and spices. Slight sourness. Strange flavor with light body. Gets worse as I drink it. Acidic finish.

Bottles and draught at Sunset Grill mid-2008.
Filtered/force carbonated and I’m not sure whether they pasteurize or not. Regardless, these are some truly washed-out, lifeless beers that are no doubt sterile filtered and full of insipidly sweet, artificial flavors and underfermented sugars. Tastes like candy in a bottle. Sweeter than breckenridge vanilla porter and though it advertises java, it’s certainly not a particularly dainty flavor. The vanilla flavor sits heavily on the palate, mixing in with the chocolatey-sweet sugars and coffee is just an afterthought, adding nothing more than sourness. Little to no roastiness, poor balance, watery mouthfeel. They’ve taken the Stoney Creek Vanilla Porter and made it worse.

12oz bottle. Thick brown-black color. Sweet chocolate aroma. Sweet and medium bodied, with a slight sour quality to it. Very drinkable and smooth. The roasted malt, vanilla, and coffee flavors all. An interesting Black Ale, but not exactly world class stuff.

Bottle. Beautiful black-colored beer with a magnificent big, stable, beige head. Aroma of roasted coffee, vanilla, some infected yeast acidity notes. Flavor starts sweet and a bit chocolatey with hints of vanilla and very unpleasant sourness, mostly towards the finish. Light-bodied. If it wasn’t for the nasty infection this would probably be a decent beer. I wouldn’t have rated it if I didn’t see in other ratings the infection seems to be a consistent thing.