Harveys Porter (Bottle)

Brewed by Harveys
Style: Porter
Lewes, England

Bottle. A dark brown color with a laced brown head. Vanilla, toasted malts, dry and nicely balanced for a porter. A long enjoyable toasted malt aftertaste. Christmas Party 2004 ranked 5/15 (mine) and 5/15 (group).

Fully dark brown color, with slight reddish tints, under a thin tan head. Aroma, nice and creamy, light, bit of cocoa, but perhaps a bit too less? Taste: smoothness incarnate, light and breezy, for a dark ale. Flavors of cocoa and coffee reside on the palate, but don’t trouble the tongue too much. Decent porter, I guess, but I was hoping for more, much more, and I have to be disappointed, especially considering the price of the bottle. Not going to return to this one, sad to say...

Courtesy of OhioDad. I’ve long wanted to try this brew as English Porters are much harder to come by here and I generally find Harvey’s to be a great brewery from what I have been able to sample. <P> Aroma is sweet malt, cereal and LOTS of raisin but with that melange of cereal in the background the end result is that it smells like a freshly opened box of Raisin bran. Licorice notes are also a large component of the aroma. There is a dry woody smelling aroma as well. Noticeably absent...much on the way of roast or bitterness. <P> The body is a dark brown with deep garnet hints and a dimisnishing tan head that is initially a thumb thick. The first sip is massively of black licorice and has a creamy frothed milk feel to it. Black molasses, treacle, raisins....low bitterness. Some mild toasty notes that stop well short of roasted. Mouthfeel is thinnish by American standards...but is really maybe a bit thick compared to most English originating porters I have had. I’d like some more hops for it to be perfect in my eyes (or mouth really) but this is a great tasting brew and the smooth creamy licorice notes remind me of Baltic Porter. It’s very nice.

(bottle - 500 ml) Dark brown pour with not much of a head. Aroma is very dark and fruity with hints of wine and plums. Taste is rather bland, almost like a dry red wine. Some malt in the flavor with some sweetness and fruits. Not much roasty flavor. Kind of slimy feeling.

Appropriately opaque black. Sweetish scent, like an Imperial stout almost. Disappointingly thin and watery, with a slight sweet flavor. As it approached room temp, a caramel-malt flavor became much more developed, but it remained thin and unappetizing. Its drinkable, but I chose not to finish it.

275ml Bottle (Utobeer): Black with a tan head. Sweet choc, light roast and some raisins in the nose. Sweet choc and fruits, quite moreish. Good stuff.

Very deep ruby in colour with a thin but lingering tan coloured head, excellent lacing. The aroma has some light sweetness, light roast, some chocolate, raisins and molasses. The flavour is again lightly roasty, high sweetness, a bit watery with some chocolate and liquorice. Roasty but watery mouthfeel, medium/light body, medium carbonation. Finishes thin.

While this was somewhat roasty, it was quite thin. It was okay but I guess that I just wanted more.

500ml bottle from LCBO in Peterborough, Ontario.
Opened on March 2, 2008.
Best before June 2008.

Bottle at home. Really dark, tar like. Grassy, funky. Raisins and sweet. Dry finish. Prunish flavour. Woody flavours. Nice.