Bells Maple Porter

Brewed by Bells Brewery
Style: Porter
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA

Tap at Eccentric Cafe: Deep brown hue with a small fading head and spotty lace. The aroma has notes of grassy hops, maple sugar, caramel, walnut, and light pear esters. The taste starts twangy and fruity with a very light maple syrup background. Grassy bitterness and a tad nutty upon the finish. The mouth feel is lively and light-bodied, short finish. Okay, needs more depth of palate IMO. Seems to be dumbed down for the masses.

On tap at the Eccentric cafe. Pours a dark brown with a beige colored head. Aroma is chocolate, light roast, caramel. Flavor is chocolate, caramel, roast, hint of maple. Palate is medium to full bodied, medium carbonation, finished slightly sweet. Decent.

On tap @ The Eccentric Cafe: Pours brown with an off white head. Aroma, some roasted notes, chocolate, hints of maple, caramel. Flavor, roasted malts, maple syrup, caramel chocolate and some toffee notes, a slight earthy bitterness to the finish which rounded out the sweetness nicely. Pretty good stuff.

On tap at eccentric. Very subtle maple flavor, hidden well with the malt. Not overpowering in the least, which is nice. Some hidden flavor thats not in your face, which is fun to find :)

12oz Pour $2.25 Eccentric Cafe Bell’s Maple Porter poured garnet with faint ruy highlights around the glass. A small off-white head formed from the pour but but quickly faded. Good looking beer. The aroma was mostly what you’d expect from a porter along with some stout tendancies. Some lightly roasted malts, mild coffee mingles in there as well, along with a pinch of brown sugar. The maple syrup adds a level of sweetness but is hard to pick up in the nose. This is one of those beers that tastes exactly like it smells. Lightly roasted malts and a sweetness from the syrup lead their way through the profile of this brew. Hints of coffee and brown sugar pop in and out. Body was medium with a carbonation that (if I had to complain) was a little too sluggish. Slick and coating. I sampled this today and it went down pretty easy on a cold afternoon. Would have had another if there weren’t so many other choices on tap I’ve never had. 11/11/07

On tap at the Eccentric Cafe. Odd stuff here. It is a pretty dark brown body and there’s not a lot of head forming. Nose is very smokey/peaty/charcoaly. Flavor is much the same, and I was really enjoying the first sip until the maple took over with an artificial tasting sweetness that didn’t want to be friends with the smokey flavors. Aftertaste was made from those dissonnant sweet and smokey flavorings.

On tap at the cafe. Dark brown in color. The aroma was mostly dark malt. Good flavor with just a hint of the maple. I like the regular porter better, but this was good.