Smuttynose Robust Porter

Brewed by Smuttynose Brewing Company
Style: Porter
Portsmouth, New Hampshire USA

Black black beer with nice looking tan head. The smell is of coffee which extends to the taste as well. I really this beer.

Cask @ GBBF 2007. Pours a black color with a small tan head. Roasted malty chocolate and coffee aroma. Roasted malty coffee and chocolate flavor with some hoppy hints. Long roasted malty finish with a hoppy bitter aftertaste.

From bottle. Aroma of roasted malt and coffee. Pours like silk, dark with a brown bread head. Smooth texture, coffee. I felt the flavour faded quickly. Left a weird film texture behind. Still a good stout.

The scant aroma is somewhat chocolatey. Appears practically opaque in the glass, with no foam, just a thin ring of bubbles. The chocolate taste predominates up front, giving way to a more coffee-like bitterness. Feels substantial but not heavy on the palate. Overall, falls awkwardly in between traditional porter and stout.

Nice black color with tan head. Candied sugar malts are apparent as well as roasted coffee/tofee and chocolate malt aromas. The taste itself is a dusty smoked taste with quiet but persistant smoked chocolate flavor.

Cask gravity @ GBBF 2007, London. Dark black color with a small to average, frothy, fair lacing, mostly lasting, light brown head. Aroma is moderate malty, dark chocolate, moderate hoppy, pine, grapefruit. Flavor is moderate sweet and bitter with a average to long duration. Body is medium, texture is oily, carbonation is flat to soft.

Bottle. Aroma a rich chocolate and toasty-roast with a firm but still subtle nuttiness. Really a lot of strong scents here - coffee, a kind of starch cardboard, wood, slight bitter hops. Opaque black pour (not-light-sucking, but still opaque) with a pretty, light brown head. Crisp, medium-strong bitter attack on first tasting - activates and pushes the salivary glands into overdrive! We want more! Bitter coffee and bitter gourmet dark chocolate (though to a lesser degree) taste, roasty and salty with a nice overall malt-hop balance. Faint touch of currant and a very nice, rounded, natural espresso flavor. Medium-full body, smooth on whole (excepting the crisp beginning) with a dryish, nutty, salty aftertaste (somewhat reminiscent of licorice, though the edible kind). Very robust, and yet at only 5.7% abv, not one you have to think twice about. One of my new favorites (up there with Alpha Klaus, and that’s high praise) - this is an amazing porter!

Date: 02/10/2006
Mode: Bottle
Source: Trade

dark brown, thin fine tan head, rich chocolate aroma, lots of balanced chocolate and roasted flavor, light roasted bitterness, mostly dry,

Aroma: 6/10; Appearance: 6/10; Flavor: 6/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 10/20
Rating: 2.8/5.0
Drinkability: 7/10
Score: *4