Port Brewing Old Viscosity

Brewed by Port Brewing/Lost Abbey
Style: American Strong Ale
San Marcos, California USA

Bottle... TITW Part Deux... This beer rocks!... Black ale with a small, creamy, brown head. Nutty, toasted malt aroma with notes of graham, light butterscotch, vanilla and chocolate. The flavor is medium sweet, but also heavily bitter and burnt with plenty of vanilla and alcohol. Full-bodied with an oily mouthfeel and medium carbonation. Red hot, bitter finish. World class beer! Thanks to scraff for sharing his bottle!

Porus a mostly opaque with some dark brown hues and a nicely-lacing frothy tan head. Aroma has a rich, sweet dark caramel maltiness with some dark fruity complexity. Body starts rich, thick and viscous (hence the name) with lots of sweet sticky caramel and toasted malts. Finishes smooth hiding the alcohol and leaving lots of lingering dark chocolate. A very nice beer.

courtesy of Kris Butler and Laurent Mousson - clear very dark coloured; no foam remaining; roasted chcolate aroma with notes of fresh apples and vanilla; oily and sticky, full-bodied and with a solid bitterness; dry and long solid bitterness with more chocolate and some robust hoppy notes coming through; late warming alcohol kick - rich, complex and with lot of character

Pours like diluted treacle syrup, with small dark brown-greige head. Coffee, bread, alcohol and vanilla/oakwood. Very liqueurish - coffeeliqueur. Alcohol, fusels, coffee (with very roasted beans), wood in the finish, almost vinous. Very slight sourness. Pretty carbonated on palate/lips; certainly alleviating this very thick, nearly viscous liquid. Very good, if a bit ideomatic... - what, not an I. Stout?

Black colour with a brown head. Malty, light roasted aroma with oak/ vanilla sweet notes and hints of chocolate and alcohol. Light roasted and alcohol and vanilla sweet flavor. Light dark fruity finish.

<i>My Bottom Line:</i>
Eloquent caramel malts display a blueberry port wine musicality through a portly roasty and resinous tuba. Be careful though, cuz this most generous and jazzy Imperial Stout is pregnant with a Barley Wine.

<i>Further Personal Perceptions:</i>
-A sheet of foam slowly hides into the dark brown-sleeved blackness.
-The finish is a seamless union of roasted malt bitterness and wooden hop resins.
-Vanilla spiciness accompanies the caramel malts and well-integrated alcohol heat.
-This started out excellent at cellar temperature (10 degrees Celsius), and improved to greater heights upon travelling to room temperature.
-The soft prickliness is a little too much at first, but later on gets quieter, letting the malty glory express itself.

<b>Bottles. All mine. Oh yeah.</b>

Bottled. Beer no. 4 @ American Blind III. Very dark brown coloured. Brown dense head. Coffee, roast, sweetness, alcohol and cocoa in the aroma. Flavour is quite complex. Herbal and sharp roasted. Is quite medical and taste a bit like coff medicin. Not unpleasant though. Is qutie full bodied and dry. Grassy and quite alcohol dense end. Nice.

Pours dark brown with a thin tan head. Smells of caramel, lots of earth, some spice, molasses. Tastes moderately bitter with some chocolate and lots of roast. Interesting and very much in the imperial stout meets old ale vein.