Estes Park Porter

draft at the brewpub - Pours dark brown with a light tan head. It smells of dark roast malt with chocolate and coffee. The taste is of a coffee accented dark roast malt and while alright, seems kind of dull or flat in flavor. It’s medium bodied and a fairly good brew though I often like porters even more.

On tap at the brewpub. This was my favorite of the 5 we tried. Interesting mix of reviews here. I wonder what this says about the batch to batch variances. Dark brown with small tan head. Nose is rich and warm. Malty bitter and light nutty nose. Taste is similar. Roast malt, sweetness of caramel poking through. Smooth and rich in the mouth. Nice thickness and bitterness with chocolate and roasted malt. Iwas suprised at the quality of this one, based on my experiences with small brewery porters in the past.

12oz bottle. Massively effervescent with resulting head. Black brown color. Rich, with lots of chocolate toffee flavor. Odd carbonation. Rich and chewy, very full bodied for a beer of it’s strength. Something about the mouthfeel of this beer is off to me, be it the bittering hops or the carbonation. Either way, it still comes across as a quality US Porter.

Draft at brewery. Body-dark soda, nearly opaque body with a soda like head. Taste-pecan, nutty, Imperial Brown Aleish, medium to high CO2, light dirt, some spruce, nut shell.

Little aroma. I did not like this. Strainy, with a hint of roast and smoke, but not a good flavor. A little sweet.

Alas, a dark beer from Estes Park… hope… uh, no. Gusher of a bottle… Brown with a mammoth tan head. Aroma of grain, sweet malt, chocolate, tree bark and a something sour. Body is chewy, dusty and astringent with mild notes of chocolate and malt. Perhaps this bottle was a touch old, however I’m sure this wouldn’t be that good straight from the tap.

Black in color......opaque. An almost nonexistent head. Complex aroma with varying roasted and sweet notes. Slightly sweet malt taste up front......fairly smooth mouthfeel with a hint of crispness. Finishes with a basic malt back.

12 oz bottle. Pours a dark brown with a thin light tan head that quickly diminishes to a thin collar.

The aroma is sweet lactic chocolate with some acidic roasted malts and coffee.

The flavor is sweet lactic chocolate and nuts with some astringent roasted malts and coffee. The finish has enough bitterness for good balance. The mouthfeel is medium and watery with almost no carbonation (seems to be common of EP beers).

Overall, a pretty decent and under-rated porter. If it was a little less watery (and thus subdued) and less acidic, this would be really good.