Long Trail Brewmaster Series Imperial Porter

Brewed by Long Trail Brewery
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
Bridgewater Corners, Vermont USA

22oz bottle. Medium tan head atop dark brown body. Aroma is moderately sweet, coffee, earthy, some grapefruit, light chocolate. Taste is moderately sweet, coffee, some earthy, chocolate, light alcohol. Smooth medium body.

Pours a barely transparent dark mahogany with ruby hues and a creamy froth of full-lacing dark tan head. Has a lightly sweet toasty dark caramel and chocolate nose with a touch of earthy grapefruity hops and coffee. Starts with pretty good fullness and sweet dark caramel and roasted malts with some good chocolate flavor and a smooth slightly warming bittersweet finish. A pretty good imperial porter.

Bottle from Craft. Pours onyx with off-brown head. The head dissipates pretty quickly, and the nose is dark patent malt, cacao, molasses. Tastes rich, dark malty, with notes of dark choc, cacao, slight rauch, molasses, and backup hops. Smooth and refreshing, this one is nice.

Bottle (thanks zathrus13 aka Jeff) : Deep brown with ruby highlights topped by a beige creamy head that left excellent lace. Nose detects molasses, bakers chocolate, slight plum, grapefruit, piney and resiny along with slightly herbal hops. There are sublime notes of coffee, walnut, bready, rye, roasted and charred malts too. The taste is initially twangy fruit and sweet nutty malt supported by coffee and hop powered bitterness. Spicy components of liquorice and rye in addition to some constant chocolate covered espresso beans. The mouth feel is smooth and mildly aggressive and lively, a tad astringent and chalky. Overall, I am quite impressed with this hoppy Impy Strong porter.

Bottle. Black with at an head. Roast y coffee hints of lactose and sugar sweetness, a hoppy body with pine y accents. Sweet with a bitter finish. Good.

Tap at Bobbique. Pours a nice deep dark woody brown almost black tight white head and killer lacing. Aroma is first- nutty, roasty, chocolate, and good coffee then switches to earthy and rootbeer like mt ranier hops, then goes to fuller piney resin more PNW style hoppiness when warms- and gets a bit fruity. Flavor is toffee, roast, chocolate malts, licorice root, anise, rootbeer, herbal, and then piney and moderate citrus hops. Smooth and lasting finish- keeps me wanting to go back for another sip. Definitely on the hoppy side for a porter but it works- good stuff.

Brown pour. Tan head. I couldn’t believe it but this had an aroma that was exactly the same as a bowl of hop pellets with some roasted malt and maybe a hint of chocolate. Flavor has more chocolate than the aroma would hint and has a nice hope bite too. This is well done.

Draught at Capone’s: Aroma of hops, pine, citrus, and slight roasted malts. Poured very dark brown in color with a creamy, dense, medium-sized, brown head that lasted throughout. Clear. Slightly sparkling. Excellent lacing. Flavor is medium sweet. Tastes of coffee, chocolate, hops, light pine, slight roasting, and a hint of vanilla. Medium body. Thin, oily, slightly dry texture. Soft to average carbonation. Lightly sweet, coffee, chocolate, and roasted malt finish.