MacTarnahans Bourbon Cask Aged Blackwatch Cream Porter

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

Pours dark with a thin head.Heavy aroma of wood, must be the barrel.this brew was silky and smooth with hints of chocolate and caramel.This was most excellent and need more.

Pours a very dark black with a smallish, creamy tan head. The bourbon aging is evident in the aroma and smells like coffee with oatmeal laced with bourbon. You can taste a good bit of the wood in the flavor along with a touch of dark chocolate. I’m not sure how this would stand up on it’s own. It seems to be lacking a bit of body, but the whiskey doesn’t completely overpower this and I’m enjoying it.

From a 2003 vintage bottle. Medium sized tan head. A little vanilla in the aroma with some roasted oak and wood. The taste is roasted nuts, some coffee with sourness in the finish. Also some notes of dark chocolate as it warms up. I was not blwn away, but the barrel aging improves this one a little bit.

Bottled. Black, small head. Woody whiskey aroma. Fairly sweet and medium bodied with soft mouthfeel. Heavy on vanilla, low bitterness. The bourbon overpowers all finer details.

This could be the very best porter to be unleashed upon the world. Black as night with a beige head of thick froth that you can scoop with a spoon...and anjoy as a merengue-like appetizer. If you close your eyes you can smell the bourbon behind the sweet malt, chocolate, and coffee that comprise this masterful brew’s bouquet. This brew is as smooth and yummy as anything I’ve ever tasted, rich, creamy, full of fruit, cocoa, and some of the aforementioned whiskey! At our last 3 beer tastings, this has been the hands-down favorite. If they should ever make this available on tap, I will buy a keggerator that same day...and die a happy man.

LARGE Thanks to the great rater Sham for sending me this beer a bit over a year ago!

Rating #620
Vintage 2003: - Holly F-ing HellO Operator… This beer is RAD!
Pours a deep charred black body with a fat rocky megalithic tan head… lacing everywhere! The aroma and flavor bring forth notes of nothing I have ever to this degree! Perfectly rounded and balanced tart yet lightly spiced notes of wooden bourbon cask! It must have been the extra year in my cellar that assisted in developing these smoky, notes of dark berries, cherries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, currants… Ohhh, MAN this is good! What I usually find with cask aged beers is that they are far too tart and have overwhelming suggestions of what I feel taste like buttermilk…. But this… this is totally rounded out! The tart coffee, coco, and smoky suggestions of porter are still coming through nicely, but it’s that bourbon cask aging that is adding that really nice deep complexity to the overall brew!

bottled and on tap at pyramid. pleasant purple black colour. aroma of bourbon vaniila and some whipped cream. surprisingly thin, quite sweet, chocolate ice cream, just a shame it peters out

overall it was just light.thats all i can really say.especially for the price.i still have not had a mactarnahans i like.