Northwoods Poplar Porter

Brewed by Northwoods Brew Pub
Style: Porter
Eau Claire, Wisconsin USA

Bottle: Pours a transparent copper brown with a thin, spotty-lacing off-white head. Aroma of lightly roasted, dry, nutty character with a hint of diacetyl. Body starts thin, buttery, and with plenty of infected acidity. Blah, a drainpour. I have not had a good beer from them yet.

Bottle thanks to Skyview! Poured a translucent, iced tea brown with a short cap of creamy beige head. Aroma was quite odd.. picked up sweet molasses with just a touch of barely-roasted cocoa.. very, very heavily sweetened.. fructose? The flavor was also very sweet with simple sugars as the focal points.. dry cocoa shows up with some nuttiness at the drawn-out, grainy finish.. methinks not much malt went into this one. Light-bodied on the palate and watery for most of it... somewhere in the middle I think all semblance of beer was lost and I found some stale water.. where there was substance it was grainy. Just a poor attempt at a porter.

Bottle. Dark amber with a small light head. Aroma is sugary malts, roasted nuts, and maybe a touch of cocoa. Flavor took a real odd turn. Very sour malts is about all I can say about that. A porter??? I think not.

On tap at the Eau Clair location. Brown with a light head. Almost no nose on this one and a light nutty flavor.

Fresh, on tap at both the Chetek and Eau Claire, WI brewpubs. Pours a clear burnt amber brew with a small light tan head. Hardly any foam head, just a touch of spotty lacing. Aroma has roasted chestnuts, some Ambrosia light chocolate, and just a touch of peat. Taste is roasted malt, peat and nutty cereal but very watered down. Highly carbonated which made the beverage very light. I love porters but this is more of a light brown ale than a porter. Could use some dehydration and more flavor.

On tap at brewery. Looks like it could be a porter. Dark brown, a bit of a whitish head. No nose. Hits the mouth with fizz and bitterness, a bit of roasted malt and chocolate. But that’s it. No body to speak of...like a dark American pilsner. Disappointing. Not a porter after all, some sort of cruel joke.

Pours a dark amber with off-white head. Aroma of roasted malts and light chocolate. Flavor was lightly veiled aroma. Way too thin for a porter.

This is the first in a long list of ratings of beers sampled at a special meeting of the Champaign-Urbana Beer Club. The theme was to find beer that I had never had. I was impressed by the efforts of club members to obtain over thiry beers that never passed over my tongue before. THANKS, EVERYONE!! The beers ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime but the gesture made each one taste special.

This poured a dark brown with a foamy light tan head that held on. The aroma and flavor held notes of chocolate and nuts but there was a coarsemess about the taste. Was it the water? Too hard? I don’t know. Not much body for a porter. Not an offensive beer but nothing inspired.