19641948 (492), Greensboro, North Carolina, USA Jun 12, 2008 Growler. Deep chocolate brown with cola highlights. Thick head of mocha cream. Ample roast in the aroma, along with some fresh green hoppiness. Roasty malts coat the tongue with a whirling dervish of earthy hoppiness dancing upon it. Chocolate-covered coffee bean peeks in with every sip. Bitter finish, but just so. Not overdone. Quite drinkable. The growler went down in one sitting and not the usual two.
RCL (1140), Waltham, Massachusetts, USA Dec 14, 2008 Very nice chocolate/mocha aroma. This is pretty tasty. Medium-heavy body. Very lightly sweet coffee bean flavor. Good stuff. FlacoAlto (2251), Tucson, Arizona, USA Dec 6, 2008 Updated: Dec 9, 2008A vigorous pour into my New Belgium globe goblet produces a two finger thick, light brown colored head. The beer is quite dark with an almost black color, it shows a brilliantly clear, deep, dark ruby color I held up directly to my desk lamp. The aroma has a nice dark grain character to it with aromas of chocolate, toasted bread crust, browned saltine crackers and burnt grain. The aroma is very malt focused, and pretty smooth for all of its roast grain focus.<br /><br />
Lightly sweet tasting, the beer quickly picks up some dryness from the roast grain flavors. The beer finishes with a burnt grain bitterness, a touch of roasted astringency, some light acidity as well as a touch of roasted vegetal notes, this last is pretty faint thankfully. This has a nice, rich, dark malt character to it that provides a complex sweetness to this brew. The beer is fairly light bodied, which definitely makes this easy to drink, though some of the sharper, roast & acid notes can get in the way of this at times. The sweetness found here evokes thoughts of lightly burnt caramel, perhaps a touch of dark chocolate and some notes reminiscent of lightly roasted coffee beans sweetened with lactose.<br /><br />
Not overly complex, but it does play the dark malt note pretty well. There is not much in the way of hop or fermentation character here, which is definitely ok by me. thornecb (1291), Marblehead, Massachusetts, USA Dec 6, 2008 Pours light ebony into an English pint. Mocha head recedes to skim surface. Smoked chocolate aromas. Smooth with chocolate and dark caramel upfront and a lasting lightly tangy sweet smoke finish. GodOfThunder (316), Orlando, Florida, USA Oct 27, 2008 Poured a black color with a chocolate milk colored head which vanished almost instantly. Thin on the palate with quite a bit of carbonation. The flavors of roasted nuts, cocoa and a slight bitterness are noted. A pretty good porter, but nothing really out of the ordinary. SilkTork (3959), Rochester, Kent, England Oct 10, 2008 <b>GBBF, Trade Day, 2008</b> Gravity cask. Flavours all over the place converging on a hot point. Some plastic burn. Thin mouthfeel. Not impressed. Vague stout notes, but nothing decent.
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