Coast Range Maduro Porter

Formerly brewed at Coast Range Brewing Co.
Style: Porter
Gilroy, California USA

Chestnut brown. Medium-sized bubbles race to the surface to form a gray-tan ring. Airy and vibrantly roasty nose with dabs of nougat, prunes, spruce tips, and cacao nibs. Grainy to a degree. Loose and feisty carbonation. Body is virtually weightless. Opens with a soft but tingly push of acidity and depthless notes of gritty roast. Very delicate in its richness, as understated nougat flavors struggle to interweave with a tightly pungent element of roast. Prominent spruce-laden hops cling to the tongue and enliven the dryness, but the malty richness never fully adheres to the tongue. Chalky and almost phenolic. Wetly grainy, as well, but it’s short-lived due to the overt dryness. Finishes scantly rich and rigidly dry with roast-derived acids and an ongoing spruce flavored hop character. Their Imperial was a knockout, but this has nowhere near the magic. The hops are well utilized, but the malts are very poorly extracted and the highly active carbonation hampers all other potentially positive nuances. Thanks beerguy101.

Bottle at Oliver Twist, Stockholm. Dark brown with a small beige head. Dark chocolate in aroma, notes of caramel roastiness and vegetables. Chocolate, vanilla and coffeebeans in flavour with a hard mouthfeel. Cocoa, chocolatesauce and hops in the aftertaste.

Nice deep brown with convoluted, spiralling head. Warm, chocolately aroma with light smoke and sweet hints of honey and gingersnaps. Fairly sweet and round intial gulp, segueing to some luscious milk chocolate and mousse aspirations. Lightly raisiny and finishes with a perfectly-carbonated, thickish but refreshing vanilla mouthfeel, like sweetened whipped cream on that mousse. A great porter.

Moderate viscosity, inky brown yet opaque when put to light, and a few sawdust spackles for the head. Aromatic introduction assumes a dark chocolate role that’s nearly souring, but it puts off more of a smoky profile, driven by honey baked ham and smoked summer sausage, and later evolving to wood fired Canadian bacon pizza. Unsweetened bakers chocolate begins the flavor portion, with a similarity to diluted Hershey syrup drizzled over low-sodium ham. A mocha factor is involved, but it’s taken up the characteristic of a greasy burger joint that just-so-happens to serve a couple cafe creations on the side. Flavor and palate pairing degradation of low-sugar, flat Coca-Cola. Thinning, with no stopping power throughout all 22 ounces, and, dare I say, under carbonated. Finishes like a 12-year old girl’s first attempt at making caramel fudge in her Easy Bake Oven. Thanks for the bottle, tpkenned!

Almost black in color, covered by a light beige head. I’m quickly taken aback by the amount of caramel malts thrown on top of the roasted ones in this beer, it might make it a bit too sweet, which diminishes its otherwise excellent drinkability, but it also ensures a more developped and complex flavor profile, that heads away from its basic coffee and dark chocolate flavors to touch toffee and earthy candyish "barley sugar" as we call it in Québec. Light bodied, rather effervescent, well roasted, not very dry, but balanced and pleasant.

[At Stockholm Beer Festival 2005] A very dark brown beer with a thin orange head. The aroma is sweet roasted with a good deal of coffe as well as some wood - I think it is Cedartree. The flavor is sweet roasted and very smooth, with a dry bitter coffee end, but the body is thin.

Bottled. Black coloured, small brown head. Roasted malt in faroma. Veautiful flavour of smoke, roasted malt, coffee and caramel. Long aftertaste if roasted malt and caramel. Very smooth and easy-to-drink, though being kind of complex.

GABF ’05. Black body, off-white head. Light coffee roast aroma. The flavor focuses on roast malt with an acidic huskiness. Hints fo pear. A simplistic yet enjoyable roasty, tart porter.