Blue Point Porter

Brewed by Blue Point Brewing
Style: Porter
Patchogue, New York USA

Cask. Dark clear brown ale with a big bubbled off white head. A roasted toast aroma with nutty notes. In mouth, a smokey peat malt with nutty notes, light moka, a dry powdery finish. Medium bodied. The Real Beer Expo - Rochester, NY, Oct. 21, 2006.

on tap-pours a light tan head with dark brown color and red tint. Aroma is dark malt-oatmeal/coffee. Taste is dark malt-oatmeal/coffee, secondary hops. OK carbonation.

(cask @ The Real Beer Expo - Rochester, NY) Clear brown in color with a thin tan head. Aroma is very bitter and full of roasted malts and some coffee. Some hops, but mostly malts. Flavor has lots of roasted coffee and the slightest hint of chocolate malts. Good roasty and bitter flavor and a nice and bitter coffee finish. Really nice.

On tap at the brewery...A very malty, very roasty porter. It looks decent, as expected, with a rich dark brown body, smallish tan head. Only slighlty bitter hops in the aroma, but many more so in the flavor. It is smooth and creamy, overall quite mild and very easy to drink. I wish they had had it on cask this weekend, but no such luck.

Sample at Brewery tasting room. Pours very black with a large frothy head. Just a tad of brown translucence but otherwise no clarity. Aroma is slightly roasty with a small hop presence. Flavor is a soapy mess with hints of chocolate and roasty flavors. Seems promising but maybe too young right now.

Tap at Westside Brewing. Dark brown with a thick tan head. Smelled like grain, coffee, chocolate and roasted grains. Taste really did not do a lot for me. Slight hints of what I mentioned above but a little weak. I want more roasted coffee, caramel and chocolate from a Porter and I did not get it here. A descent effort but not memorable.

Tap and cask at the brewery - sampled side by side - dark ruby, almost black, with a creamy head from the cask (obviously), and none from the tap - aroma of roasted grains, a bit of coffee, a tiny hint of caramel and chocolate - the mouthfeel is quite smooth from the cask, but a bit too bubbly out of the tap - how does it tastes from the tap? - light roasted qualities, with a bit of cream and coffee, and a very prominent, fruity, almost blueberry-ish flavor - and from the cask? - the roasted flavor and coffee hints are more prominent, and the fruitiness is subdued - the body is a bit thin, and the finish kind of falls flat in the flavor department, but this is a pretty decent effort (and quite authentically "British" on cask) - I prefer it from the cask, but it’s worth a shot no matter how it’s served.

Cask conditioned at NYC's Blind Tiger Ale House: roasty and somewhat thin, like a schwarzbier. Porters are always hybrids - not quite a stout, not quite a bitter dunkel. I thought this had significant bitterness in both the body and aftertaste with a nice roasty touch.