Left Hand Black Jack Porter

Brewed by Left Hand Brewing Co.
Style: Porter
Longmont, Colorado USA

Bottled 08 Sep 06. Opaque black, not much head. Toasted, cold coffee nose. Toasted, roasted, light. Roasted atfertaste too. Not much to say about.

nearly black pour dense tan head w/ nice lacing. Light aroma mostly chocolate, very mellow. Avg pal. Flavor is dry coffee some coccoa powder and lighter butters. Very mellow and a nice porter.

A nicely brewed deep black porter. Nose of malted bartley and tastes of well, barley. The hops come through with a nice malty edge, followed by a peanutty, earthy flavor.

Bottle - from sampler pack. Very good. Rich flavor - malty and good chocolate malt taste.

Pours a nice black with a tan head. There is a slight roasted aroma and the flavor is primarily of roasted malt and some hop.

Bottled. Wow I was suprised to find a Colorado-no-namer in New Jersey. Picked up the variety pack, and to tell you the truth, really enjoyed all four different types. This porter is especially good, with choclate malt and nice hops. The beers very smooth and sweet, great for winter! Too bad its not even cold out yet. Worth a try, and of course there is better, but this is pretty damn solid.

My scholarly interest in a foreign country has permitted me to see first hand the kind of vacillations in pride and shame an individual can go through during a study abroad. Some stay resolutely patriotic, disgusted by what they find over seas. Others go native, masking themselves in the garb of another land to hide their own culture. Both miss the mark, I think, but the latter is the most irritable. How ashamed I was then, when only just recently did I get a chance to try Lefthand, a brewery in my home state. For a whole year I had been downing fancy and foreign beers without paying homage to the local craftsmen. My grandfather was kind enough to pass the majority of a brewer’s box onto me. Inside were four varieties, all of them masked in drab and mundane labels. It became abundantly clear why I had ignored Left Hand for so long. Even unopened it seemed slovenly and careless. The contents, I hoped, were more scintillating then the exterior. First beer up was Black Jack – a promising porter. The pulchritudinous pour was obsidian black, dark but vibrant with bubbles. A tan head sprung up during the pour but soon settled into a more two dimensional character. The smell was clearly identifiable as a porter with some extra flavors to make it stand out. Licorice, dust and soy led the astringent aromas, followed by a smattering of jerky, tree bark and cumin (a triumvirate most strange). Sadly, the taste lacked what character the aroma had. It was flat and bland, dimly glowing with what tasted like a shameful attempt at roasted coffee flavors. What’s more, the intoxicating taste lingers far longer than it is welcome. Also problematic, though not as weighty, was a light and frivolous texture that does not befit the porter style. For my obeisance to local pushes for local consumption I was not rewarded, but there are other Left Hands in the box. Maybe one of those will reward my local trade better than this did.

This particluar porter has got a more dry, dark-chocolate taste unlike some other ones that I have had. Its dry dark and malty. very good though