Carolina Winter Porter

Brewed by Carolina Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Holly Springs, North Carolina USA

Another NC treat courtesy of Oldgrowth! Very dark brown/ruby color with a barely-there head. Smells pretty groovy... smoky chocolate with a little sweetness, reminiscent of maple syrup. Interesting taste... It seems far more bready and yeasty than most porters. Malt flavor is bone dry. No hoppiness at all. Not an outstanding beer, but a very nice and unique porter. Props!

Not a lot to this beer. Standard porter. I get smoke, coffee, and chocolate in the aroma. Flavor has bitter coffee and a hint of barbecue.

Nice dark color with a small whitish head. A decent malty smoky nose, with a hint of sweet. The flavor is very smoky with a hint of bready character on the front. A decent beer, but nothing great.

Bottle, from brewery. Bottled on 12/20/06. Good aroma sweet & roasty. Some pine and spruce, brown sugar, canned ice tea, lite egg/nuttiness, little earthiness. Clean orangy dark brown color, ok head that faded quickly, minor lacing. Bittersweet flavor. Toatally loses the sweetness of the aroma. Much more of a bitter roasty flavor, some grape, little soapy, little nutty. Medium body, creamy mouthfeel, bitterdry finish. Very drinkable. I like it and enjoyed it more than my score might indicate.

Pours a dark brown with a surprising amount of light shining through. Some roasted coffee in the aroma. Flavor is roasted malts and unpleasantly bitter fresh hops. A dissapointment.

Usual CBC seasonal label with a dot-matrixed "Bot on 11/1/06". And purchased at the brewery 11/3/06. And consumed (well, at least one of them) also on 11/3/06. Fresh! Pours a rich cola color with an enormously fluffy khaki head. Ruby highlights when backlit. Tremendous lacing involved. Looks fabulous. Heady aromas of roasted malts, deep cocoa, and green hops. The varying waft of wet smoke lingers as well. Roasty malt flavors. The wet smoke flair rears its head even more so here. Raw green hoppiness. Cocoa powder provides a smidge of sweetness, then the rough-n-tumble hoppiness batters it about and finishes chalky. Dry and powdery aftertaste. Modest mouthfeel. Quite drinkable. A case is in my possession; it’ll be interesting to see if the green hops mellow out over the winter.

2003 bottle sampled at Kuhnhenn Brewery, not sure where they got this. Pours a light greyish brown, but has some darker orange swirls in there. Light tan head that is small and disippating. Aroma has some roasted barley, burnt toffee, lots of hazelnuts and some dark chocolate. Flavor is much of the dry roast, light coffee and plenty of astringent nuttiness. Upon first few sips, wow, this stuff is way too dry, there is almost no sweetness whatsoever. As it warms, though, it gains a pinch of sweetness from some chocolate malt but the roasty/coffee/nuttiness really sticks and lasts through the finish creating a pleasant experience. Overall, it’s quite thin, a bit too carbonated, not well-balanced, but the flavor is decent on the finish and after. Interesting.

On tap at the brewery. The porter started out as a nice and rich porter, but the exceesive dry hopping is too much and ruins this beer for me.