Top of the Hill Frank Graham Porter

Draft sample at the brewpub. Served on nitro... apparently... I couldn’t tell. Dark brown color with a large frothy head. Average head retention and lacing. Faint aroma of tobacco and roasted malts. Taste is bitter roasted malts, chocolate, tobacco and a bitter hoppy finish. Watery and thin.

On tap. Had this awhile ago and was replaced by the Lewis Black Imperial Stout as the brewpub’s dark variety. Pours a deep ruby with a nitro tan cap. Weak aroma like a dry stout. Taste is very simple: some roasted malt, expired milk chocolate, some roadside dine coffee. It is sad that Chapel Hill’s only brewpub is so consistently poor its offerings.

An aroma of dried coco, a tad of molasses, and a hint of sour. Dark black with a brown head and lace. Semi sweet start with a dry finish. A light chocolate is the only flavor that I can put a finger on. A bit thin and watery. Not a very good porter, but a drinkable beer.

Shared by jcwattsrugger and decaturestevo. Sits dark black and allows some ruby around the edges. Head is creamy mocha. The nose is interesting, earthy, smells like nori seaweed, salty, musty chocolate and paper, musty. The flavor is weird and off, old chocolate, nori, paper, chalky as john put it. Palate is not there, nonexistent. Thin and watery.

On tap at the brewery. The pour is pretty appetizing, thick and foamy, musta been a nitro tap. The aroma is bland, indistinctly roasty but only very faintly so. The flavor is only marginally better, with a real paucity of malt character and a slight yeasty tang where there ought to be crisp and roasted flavors. Fail.

From the tap @ Top of the Hill: Pours dark brown with a creamy white head. Fairly weak aroma of coffee, malt, and a very mild chocolate. Waterdowned and thin flavor that almost tastes like a stout and leaves no aftertaste. Doesn’t taste like a porter at all - very disappointing and would not recommend.

Draught at the WBF in Raleigh. NITRO TAP. Pours black, with ruby edges, and a white creamy nitro kind of head. Very weak aroma, mostly just smell some kind of weak chocolate and coffee. Flavor is also very watery, thin, and not good.

Name: Porter
Date: 10/04/2003
Mode: Draft, Nitro
Source: Brewfest, Durham

ruby, big tan nitro head, roasted aroma and flavor, long bitter finish, more of a stout

Aroma: 5/10; Appearance: 5/10; Flavor: 5/10; Palate: 5/10; Overall: 10/20
Rating: 2.6/5.0
Score: *4
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The score was calculated based upon the notes and an old scoring system.