MacTarnahans Bourbon Cask Aged Blackwatch Cream Porter

Formerly brewed at Portland Brewing Company (Pyramid)
Style: Porter
Portland, Oregon USA

This stuff is a top notch porter. The whiskey touch is another nice aspect on top of this being a great beer. Maybe a little too biting on the palate, but such is life with a porter. Could stand to have a bit more head...

Pitch black pour. Huge head which diminishes to a centimeter thick ring at the top. Sharp bourbon aroma with touches of cream and grapes. Mouthfeel begins heavy with woody, pine, and whiskey flavors. Hay-like scratchiness in palate when you swallow and ends slightly watery with lots of cream and butter flavors. Leaves whiskey on the lips.

Pours black with an amber core. Nice tight tan head which laced well. This beer definitely gets points for the aroma...lots o' stuff going on here. I got a huge buttermilk/butterscotch waft at first that seems to give way to the sweet vanilla sweetness of the bourbon barrel, and then lastly the chocolate /malt aromas prevail. Mouthfeel is creamy and soft with a slight drying at the end. The palate I think is somewhat weak compared to the nose with butterscotch, chocolate, and a low lingering bitterness.

Got this as a gift, and what a gift it is! Pours dark and beautiful. Savory until the last drop! This is easily Macs best. I have one bottle sitting nicely in the back of my fridge with a stone double bastard.

Pours beautiful, of the darkest brown with a tan head that leaves a bit of a runny lace. SMell is awesome at first, full of coffee, wood, roast, smoke and caramel, but then a sharp witch-hazel smell I'd hope would not pull through on taste. Taste up front is all roasted malt, with bits of butter, coffee and mollasses. The finish is smokey with a hint of hop and then that awful witch-hazel taste I dreaded. Mouthfeel is a little bit too perky for a porter and overall seemed very amatuer. Lots of good ingredients and tones, but this brewer has no idea what he is doing. Off-balance, pretentious and a look that is mere window-dressing.

It is a neat aroma, like fermented pears and old man cologne. Its color is black as a magician's cape and has a slight shade of deep red. My first response to the flovor is vanilla ice cream topped with some coffee hazelnut syrup. The bourbon is more flirty than assertive. The mouth feel is silky and oily and thin. Indeed it is surprising to find a brew so thin yet so complicated. One could argue that it is overrated but that is beside the point: this is a good special occasion beer that drinks like an ale with long story to to tell.

Deep Black, thin mocha head, little lacing. Somewhat smokey, chocolate, coffee, roasted malts (obviouslly). Twice as good as the non-aged blackwatch. You can slighty tasted the casking flavors. Very smooth. Very Nice.

Midnight black body with a small brown head. Nose is roasted malt and wood. Not too much from the bourbon is relayed through the aroma. More of the wood, than anything but it has a sweetened tone to it. The taste reveals more of the bourbon. The alcohol and wood seem more evident during the finish while the roasted and sweetened malt notes are the main flavors. The description is right, though, this is very creamy. Exquisite velvety feel. This was a damn good beer and recommended to all!