Thomas Hooker Imperial Porter

Brewed by Thomas Hooker Brewing Company
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
Bloomfield, Connecticut USA

500mL bottle. Pours a dark black center; medium-tan head with excellent retention and lacing. Aroma shows bitter chocolate and cocoa. Medium-to-full mouthfeel: plenty of roasted malts, bitter chocolate, and citrus hops; shows a bit more alcohol than the average porter, but otherwise nothing else stands out. Well-balanced, chocolate and citrus finish.

From a 1 liter swing top bottle, bottled in 2005. Poured a black coffee brown with a rocky, fluffy tannish brown head, good retention, settled into a thin creamy lacing, minimal amount of laced sticking. Aromas of roasted coffee malts mingled with mocha, berry fruitiness, caramelized sugar and whiffs of sweet, rum-like alcohol. Good, steady, even carbonation and a malty crisp, slick, creamy smooth full bodied mouthfeel. Delicious tasting, burnt grain and roasted coffee and chocolate malts, a subtle salty nuttiness, a soft purple grape fruitiness, caramelized sugary, a mellow herbal touch, towards the end, flashes of medicinal alcohol flavor, warming in the back of the throat, and a dryish roasted caramel and coffee malty finish. Just a great porter, I need more of this, wonderful on a cold, windy midwestern night, easy, smooth sipping drinkability, another near perfect brew from Thomas Hooker.

Nose if coffee chocolate and oaky. Thin pour with no head. Coffee roast and English hopping. Nothing amazing, worth the drink.

(1L Bottle, 2006 vintage) Pours a dark brown body with a spare off-white head. Aroma of chocolate, roastiness, vanilla, and oatmeal. Flavor of caramel, alcohol, roasted malt, chocolate, and hops with a dry finish.

Pours a rich dark brown. Aroma of soured fruits, vanilla, alcohol and roast. I tasted the vanilla right away, followed by some dark roast and tingly licorice. More black coffee roast in the finish, but also some tartness and sugar sweetness. Pretty smooth.

Deep caramely brown with no head. Sweet dried fruit like plums on the nose. Little or no carbonation, slightly sticky. Taste is roasted malt and dried candied fruit with a bitter finish.

Lots of chocolate aromas coming off this dark brown pour with a nice creamy tan head. 1 liter bottle. Flavor was really really bitter on the finish after the inital chocolate flavor. Very good, but more bitter than I expect in any porter.

This flippy top bottled brew from a bottle shop poured a very large sized head of foamy fine to medium sized brown colored bubbles that was mostly lasting and left behind a semi-opaque no visible carbonation dark brown colored body and a poor lacing. The mild aroma was dark malt. The mouth feel was smooth at the start and mediumly tingly at the finish mild vinous aftertaste. The thick smooth flavor contained notes of bread dough dark malt and burnt malt with a malt bite in the finish and a mild burnt malty aftertaste. Delicious and one I would certainly buy again.