Northwoods Poplar Porter

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

Date: 09/29/2007
Mode: Bottle
Source: Tasting, Cellar Party

clear brown, fine beige head, bits of drippy lace, light chocolate aroma with a butterscotch sweetness, creamy body partually due to the dyactyl, flavor starts of sweet with chocolate and caramel and then makes an abrupt uturn with a strong tartness,

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 7/10; Flavor: 4/10; Palate: 6/10; Overall: 7/20
Rating: 2.3/5.0
Drinkability: 5/10
Score: *+/4

From the Jug at the GABF Colorado Convention Center, Denver 10/10/2008 Vanilla aroma. Dark coloured and fruity with some alcohol present. A little dryness in a crisp slight roast finish.

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.

Headless, but actively lacing nonetheless, this dark brown brew has a lightly roasted, caramelly aroma, almost corny sweet. Quite spritzy in the mouth for a porter. The flavor is a one dimensional roasted barley with little else. Drinkable, but why?

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Chestnut to mahogany color with a small light tan head. Light roasted malt aromas with a hint of smoke. Dark chocolate. light roasted malt and peat. Fairly simple, but OK.

Sample at the brewpub. Gets a point for great head retention but loses a couple for being very light and transparent brown...not very porter-like...roasty-sweet choocolate and faint nuts in the nose is a good step towards tolerable from this place, but the moderately roasty body is undone somewhat like all of these products by the damn hard water and alkaline/metallic texture. Tolerable.

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.

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.