Barley Johns Alfreds Porter

Formerly brewed at Barley Johns Brew Pub
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
New Brighton, Minnesota USA

The Lure:
Sweet soy components roam amidst the wealthy malt. Roastiness emanates from the mix and ably joins some dates and dark chocolate.

The Festivities:
Fat dark chocolate malts lie on roasted cereal flakes. Alcohol flames scorch the back of the palate, but the soothing carbonation and balming malts reconcile it all. Not super-complex, but these guys can really brew high octane beers with aplomb.

Transcendence:
A simple giant with a heart of gold.

12 oz bottle soothingly sampled with beerbuzzmontreal, ClarkVV, MartinT, tiggmtl, olivier, Rastacouere and Simon at the Farmhouse Ales and More! tasting in Montreal. Dense molasses body, nearly still with a touch of dark topping...strongly roasty chocolate nose with touches of nuts, could be more expressive...ultra-sweet chocolate liqueur body, raisins and dates drowning in pools of still cocoa with the whole run through an espresso machine at the end...not a patch on Dark Knight, but pretty high quality in its own right. From a growler from Master Footbalm.

Sweet marzipan malty aroma is somewhat subdued and reserved. Opaque brown with a partial cover and ring of tan head that recedes with minor lacing. Very sweet and lightly alcoholic flavour offers up a gentle roastiness in the finish to save from cloying. Medium full body with fair carbonation. Bottle sampled with beerbuzzmontreal, ClarkVV, MartinT, muzzlehatch, Olivier, Rastacouere and Simon.

Bottle from footbalm. Pours a very opaque inky black body a small tan head. The aroma is quite pleasant...almost bakers chocolate-like, molasses, coffee, cherries, licorice, and the obligatory alcohol tinge. Taste is sweet malts, more chocolate, then vanilla, and maybe more coffee...finishing up with some bitterness in the end. Soft carbonation mixes well with the full-bodied mouthfeel. Another tasty one from Barley Johns....and Eric.

Pours a dark brown color with no head. Aroma of chocolate and roasted malt. Flavor of chocolate and roasted malt, there’s something that feels like soy too, bitter finish. Light body, creamy texture, soft carbonation.

Dark brown body, clear edges. This was bottled more than a month ago and yet it wears a decent beige head, initially decent sized, but fading out. Very aromatic nose bearing a strong alcohol punch, but once you get used to it, there’s definitely some stuff to appreciate underneath. The malt is bold, with rich chocolate notes, a complex understated fruitiness (date cakes, grapes) and an obvious molasses thick. Fortunately, while it is extremely sweet, it never approaches cloying levels and says among the sippers territory. Aftertaste burns a bit if you keep it long in mouth, but it’s not unrefined. Cane sugar and marshmallow sweetness evolution leads into a charred roasted malts/molasses finish. Still a decent amount of carbonation on this oily medium body. Intense. Another big thumbs up to my pal Eric.

Big thanks to footbalm. Looks like he has supplied most of us with our sample. Dark brown color with no head but that may be because it is rebottled. Lots of alcohol in the aroma. Sweet and syrupy. Very smooth with very little carbonation at all. It has too much alcohol with enough other flavor to balance it out.

3/16/05. Poured out of 12 oz. bottle, obtained in a trade with footbalm on RateBeer 3/16/05. Hand-bottled. Roast, alcohol, sweet dark wood, some nail polish remover, and unsweetened chocolate-- almost sour-- in the nose. Vinous. Dark tan head that thins to a film but remains dense where it lays. Excellent, dense and sticky lacing and a very dark, brown-black, mostly opaque body. Some dark red-orange color to the edges. Oily, silky, full-bodied with a light alcohol and charcoal burn, big viscosity and huge roast finish. Long with charcoal briquettes and a bit of sweet, plummy sugar that doesn’t belong. Taste is darkly chocolatey with some coffee ground in the background, a rich maltiness almost like a bock-- does not fit well. I even get some black olive-like flavors. Dry finish fights the syrupy body and sweetness, falling against the plummy fruit. Very long aftertaste with some smoke and tobacco creeping in the back. Just too damn sweet-- almost like DFH Worldwide Stout (23%) mixed with a nice Baltic Porter. I’d like a touch more carbonation as well, but this is one bad mutha of a beer. Just not balanced right.