Moccasin Bend Smoky Mountain Porter

Brewed by Moccasin Bend Brewing Co.
Style: Smoked
Chattanooga, Tennessee USA

The brewers seemed a little unsure about this one, but they shouldn’t be. This was an excellent beer and the best of their lineup, at least for the big-flavor seeking beer geeks. Assertive smoke does not overwhelm the cocoa of the beer. Relatively thin body, but flavorful. Nice.

Appearance: Pours an opaque, dark brown body with a medium-sized, off-white head. Smell: Subtle meaty smokiness enveloping an aroma of dark malt, cocoa powder, licorice, and prunes. Taste: Dark maltiness, mildly sweet, and a full (though never overblown) taste of sooty smoke and roast. Integrated fruit and licorice flavors. Some hunks of baker’s chocolate. Dialed up licorice on the cocoa coated finish. Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied. Medium carbonation. Drinkability: Not bad! There’s a very reasonable, well-balanced smoke character in this one. Enough to please the smoke fans and keep the smoke crybabies from screeching.

Dark brown with light brown hints, off white cover. Aroma is smoky, some roast, chocolate, ash, dry. Taste is smoke again, char, ash, chocolate, lingering roast and campfire smoke finish.

Growler sampled on 11/8/06: Pours a nearly opaque with dark brown edges and a well-lacing frothy tan head. Sweet, lightly smoked, dark chocolatey aroma has a touch of earthy hops. Body starts with nice sweet dark caramel maltiness revealing a smooth, bittersweet dark chocolate flavor. A nice smoked porter.

I will always be a sucker for the aroma of a smoked beer. This one smells great - in addistion to the smoke aroma, there is a definate hint of coffee. Flavor is very much a breakfast in a glass kind thing - coffee and bacon, all in one. Very enjoyable and tasty.

This was a nice porter. A black appearance with a chocolate and smokey aroma. The flavor was bitter with some coffee, chocolate, and smoked malt flavor. The smoke does stand out in this one. I enjoyed it.

On tap at the brewery. Pours a very dark brown with a nice head. The aroma is smoky with noticeable meat qualities and hints at chocolate, soy sauce, and coffee. I could have used used more smoke in the flavor, but this was good. Plenty of meat and campfire notes are present to accent the earth, chocolate, and coffee. The finish is a bit bitter. The brewer was nice enough to let us try the base smoked beer for this porter and I liked it much more due to its clean and very pronounced alder smoke qualities. However, this is a good smoked porter.

Version 1: Pours an opaque brown color with a brown head. Aroma is malty, smoky, chocolate, roast, some hardwood notes, and caramel. Flavor is smoky, roast, chocolate, caramel, and a bitter roasty finish. Version 2: Pours an opaque brown color with a brown head. Aroma is smoky, caramel, chocolate, and some floral notes. Flavor is malty, caramel, roast, smoky, floral, and a sweet caramel finish. The second version has a little less smoke flavor and lets more of the dark grain flavors come through.