Sunday River Black Bear Porter

Brewed by Sunday River Brewpub and Restaurant
Style: Porter
Bethel, Maine USA

This beer pours a light brown/deep crimson in color with a quick white head. Slight roast on the nose with faint hops and sweet malts. Farily thin mouthfeel. Flavor has mild roasted malts, some sweet chery-like malts, a dollop of chocolate, and a tinny, hoppy flavor. Residual bitterness. A quaffer.

This beer came to me in my beer club - I am not familiar with the brewer. Sampled from a 12 oz brown bottle this beer poured a black color with a medium sized dark brown head. The aroma is sweet, roasty, toasty and has a moderate chocolate element. The flavor is very malty and sweet with roasty and toasty malt elements, chocolate and a hint of coffee. The finish is a bit dry and gritty. A very nice porter.

Gotta love the look of a porter! Hops, a bit of malt, and a bit of coffee on the aroma. Typical porter in that sense. This has a weak palate for a porter, but that makes it more drinkable than a typical porter. There is not much aftertaste either. The flavor is similar to the aroma, mostly hops on a rather average porter base. Not much to see here, but a quality brew nonetheless.

Body is black with a thin tan head. Aroma is a bit roasty with chocolate and some caramel. Taste is actually a bit hoppy for a porter, along with espresso dryness, and like 85% cocoa in it. Actually similar to Alpha Klaus.

12 oz. bottle from BOTMC. Drank on 8/4/06. Fairly dark chocolatey brown. Almost looks murky when held to the light, but hard to tell. Big, rocky 1+" tan head. Drops slowly. Big huge layer of foam sticks around forever. A little lacing. Aroma - avg. strength. Some roastiness, coffe, and chocolate. Flavor - somewhat low level of up front bitterness. Kind of an odd, watered down roasty flavor in the middle. Very strange metallic flavor after the swallow. Palate - pretty light, especially for a porter. Fairly low carb. Somewhat watery. Overall - not a great beer. It tastes like a porter, but the flavors aren’t very strong, they are a tad off, the mouthfeel and body are really light and watery, and the metallic aftertaste is bad.

Pours opaque almost black with thin tan head. Aroma is full of brown sugar, coffee, and syrup. Taste is a mix of chocolate, coffee and hops, all roasted together. Aftertaste is a like bitter dark chocolate. A full and complex beer.

12oz bottle via trade with porterhouse! - Thanks Kevin! Pours black with a fluffy offwhite head that stays well and laces some. Aromas of good roast, chocolate, a touch of vanilla, and a little coffee. Flavor is roasted malts, chocolate, coffee, a bit of vanilla, and some nuts. Medium bodied and well carbonated. Not too bad..

Thanks to egajdzis for this... Appears a dark brown with a black body and red edges. A one finger, tan head slowly fades out into a cap that refuses to yield. The smell is of roasty malt, cream, chocolate, nuts, and vanilla. Taste is of the same aromas. Perhaps a hint of coffee as well. Mouthfeel is medium bodied, with roasted malts, and bitter cocoa clinging to the palate. It’s slightly thin but hardly noticeable.