Dark Horse Reserve Special Black Bier

Brewed by Dark Horse Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Marshall, Michigan USA

Bottle: Dark black pour with a smaller tanned head. Aroma of roast, malt, and coffee. Taste is roasty, dark fruits, some bittersweetness, and hints of smoke. Even a bitterness in the tail, and kind of dry right in the end. Thanks IndianaRed.

Bottle Pours pitch black with a small tan head. Deep roasted aroma with some slightly sour notes. Flavor is slightly burnt malts, dakr purble grapes and black currants. Very smooth slick feel, very soft carbonation and a long bitter, smokey, slightly acidic trailor. Thanks drewbeerme for this one

Bottle: Pours a dark black color, light head. The nose is sharp in roast and some patentish notes, lots of cherry and cocoa as well. The flavor shows the real stort and we’re looking at a stout here. Sharp french roast astringency? check. Sorry, this ain’t no porter, it’s an aleish schwarzbier perhaps. The flavor is balanced, plenty of hop bitterness and a nice snappy caramel note in the end. Good, just a bit lost. Thanks IndianaRed.

12oz bottle, no date. Pours dark brown--black in the glass--with a minimal brown head fading to a ring. Aroma of roasted malts, soy, raisins, oatmeal, and milk chocolate shake. Taste is roasty malts (a bit acidic), creamy oatmeal, soy, with some more milk chocolate. Moderate bitterness that quickly leans a little towards sweetness. Low carbonation, medium bodied and smooth. Not really the norm for what I think a porter is, but still tasty.

12oz bottle poured into my delirium tulip glass. Pours black and roasty with only a minimal head that doesn’t last. Smell is really good. Roasted malts and some cocoa bean coming through. Taste is even better. A good coffee, tobacco (very well done) taste hit you at first. This has a decent bitterness to it. This is a very solid stout. The mouthfeel is a bit thin for an American Double but the taste more than makes up for it. The thin mouthfeel does keep it from making it to the next level. A very good offering from Dark Horse and I’ll seek out more of their beers. If you see this beer, definitely pick it up.

12oz bottle: Opaque black color with tiny, quickly dissapearing dark tan head. Aroma has notes of cherry, vanilla, lots of hightly kilned malt, touch of red grapes, prunes, slightly vinous. Flavor is malty, slightly sweet, with blackened malt, bit of vanilla, oak, note of brandy, with a balanced finish, with subtle herbal bitterness and equal sweetness. A nice porter, very well done.

Black color! Lots of roasted malt flavor and aroma that seems like a stout to me. Not much hop bitterness. Label is so childish that it detracts from an excellent brew!

Style designations mean little here. Theoretically a Porter, this presents like an Imperial Stout; that was my guess before logging onto here. Put it in a blind taste test up against an Impy and see.
Like many a well-done Impy, this is very good, and you know pretty much what to expect in such.