Porter
Lvivska Pivovarnya (BBH)

 

 

1/18/26 - (Bottle - Home) (Chicago, IL) Bottle Notes: Purchased a single bottle on January 17, 2026 at the Shop and Save on Nagle Avenue for $3.03 including tax. 16.9 oz. bottle refrigerated at the store and back home until opening this morning. 8.0% ABV, Lot N R 29082408444. Lvivske Ukraine Porter brewed with craftsmanship. Pasteurized dark beer. Manufacturer PJSC Carlsberg Ukraine. LVIVSKE Porter Beer Brewed and Bottled by LVIV Brewery, Ukraine. Imported by Blue Spring Imports, Inc. North Miami Beach, Florida.

Appearance: Poured about 2/3 of the bottle into a shaker pint glass, yielding a generous light tan creamy head which lingers for a few minutes before leaving substantial thin lacing and a creamy cover over a dark chestnut brown base. Fine creamy bubbles provide a thick ring around the rim. Looks very good. 4.5

Aroma: Let this sit for about 10 minutes to reach estimated proper temperature. Nice roast malt, dark chocolate and bakers chocolate blend, strength of aroma medium. Enjoying. 4.0

Taste: Sweet chocolate malt the first impression. After warming further, the roast malt and light rye notes emerge, along with toffee and caramel. Nice blend, all play together well. Let this warm and enjoy the bounty. 4.25

Mouthfeel: Drinks light and easy, far below the 8.0%. Faintly dry, faint gentle carbonation, watery body enhanced with sweetness. Roast malt and bakers chocolate finish. 3.75

Overall: My first Ukrainian beer is a winner. This is a nice and easy drinking balanced Baltic Porter with strong flavors. I'm digging this, and would purchase another. 4.0

(review from October 2020) Another much more sweet than roasty Baltic porter with nice balance/mouthfeel, slight fruity aroma & a complex, malty/figgy/raisiny/plums flavor & mouthcoating, sweet aftertaste. Definitely a smooth fooler of an 8%er that drinks like less.

Copenhagen 11/11 2018. 50 cl bottle from Kiev Airport. Drawing of Skyline with old churces in gold on black on the label. Little shield with beer drinking lion.

Pours clear dark brown with red hue and medium-sized off-white head. Settles as thin layer of foam covering the surface of the beer. Clinging to the side of the beer. Moderate lacing.

Aroma is of chocolate, molasses, brown sugar, plums and with notable boozy undercurrent like port wine.

Medium strong carbonation. Slightly thick and quite lively texture. A little sticky and sugary.

Flavor is heavy sweet followed medium bitterness. Aftertaste is bitter-sweet. Something burnt in the finish.

A heavy sweet and a bit boozy specimen.

 

The color is dark red-brown with a creamy head. It smells of caramel, toffee and chocolate. The taste is sweet with caramel, fruit, and some alcohol. One of the best offerings from Lvivske

 

1715 was a little thin and a bit sweet, let's try this. 8% on the strength, great stuff.

Light bubbly chocalatey aroma. Smooth black appearance with a bubbly white head.

Lots of coffee and chocolate flavours come through in the taste, with caramel flavours. Alcohol taste is quite hidden and not prominent. There is a distinct hops flavour in the aftertaste, which is often an afterthought in porters. It doesn't have the fullness and smoothness of a Guinness or Belgian triple...it's more light and effervescent. But it's impressive overall, and better than many Czech, Polish and Romanian porters that I have drunk recently. Plus it's a good percentage level, which the best porters always seem to be.

Porter isn't the kind of beer that I want to drink everyday, however this is a quality offering. Much smoother and more complex than their 1715. The balance of the hops with the chocolate and coffee caramel flavours is amazing, especially in the aftertaste. Let's hope Russia don't destroy their brewery and steal everything, like they did with Prince Trubetsky wine.

 

(500 ml bottle, Lot N R07042312333; purchased bottle off shelf at State Line yesterday... poured into my Weihenstephan 0.5 l mug)

L: a lot more red than expected, like a dark Scotch ale or doppelbock... enough foam to fill that gap on the glass, tight, sunburnt tan, sudsy bubbles abound... rocky collapse, lace clinging all over up top; thick rugged collar

S: blissful first whiff - chocolate cherry muffin; pure dessert, pure cake... faint wet leaf off-tones... as the head recedes, it sports a strong note of a sort of roasty Carpano Antica thing (rich vermouth)... not the least overtly boozy

T: unusual mix of roasty dopplebock and Scotch ale(?!) - maybe not so much the latter unless it's Traquair House, then yes a hint of its smoky, leathery character as well... brown bread, brown sugar, with a caramel undertone and mellow figgy finish... the aftertaste is prune, PX-infused dopplebock; in other words, not feeling the 'porter' moniker... the 8% is more sensed than stridently booze-blazing, buried beneath the malt muck... excellent overall balance

F: thickish and somewhat chewy, but with a lifting levity below likely booze-based... some legs to its residual flow; slow swell of smoldering warmth... a grown-up's type of malty motor oil

O: mad flavorful... I'm kind of beered-out for the day, so I was hoping this was trash, but nay!... it's like a robust dopplebock (higher marks if they branded it as such) with a bit of Scotch ale blended in?... far off from what I'd typically interpret as Baltic Porter (my overall rating reflects that) but, on its own as a beer, it's upper echelon; chef's kiss yo (2262)

Popping from the bottle like I’m on the cover of In Style. Raul in Del Mar like a shooting star. Lvivske Porter tastes good just as it should. Up all night and feeling alright.

Nice and easy, my children. Nice and easy.

From the half liter bottle, it pours a dark brown with reddish highlights with a modest light brown head that slowly reduces and leaves lacing. Scent is roasted malts and alcohol. Taste is heavily roasted/burnt malts.

 

RBESG 2006 Grand Tasting. Roasty and alcoholic aroma with some initial hints of vomit, gets better. Flavour is roasty and sweet with an acceptable bitterness in the finish. Quite nice.

Lvivsky Porter half liter bottle tasted during lunch at the Lvivsky Brewery caverns in about 2012. Solid tasting strong porter, probably similar to other eastern european porters brewed by Carlsberg.

 

Clear, but nearly opaque, dark brown, but close to black, with a large, proud, creamy-toned head.

In the nose: Sweet, malty, and slightly floral, at first.

In the mouth: Starts off slightly sweet, at first, then finishes off the palate on the dry side. Mostly malty, with low hops/bitterness. Medium bodied, where I'd like it a little fuller. Well-balanced, for certain. Smooth and creamy. I said low bitterness, but there is some, keeping the sweet at bay.

It's an enjoyable beverage, but, to be honest, a far cry from my favorite Baltic Porters, none of which I've seen in a long time. (Carnegie, Synebrichoff, Stepan Razin, Zywiec, Okocim, etc.)

I say this just before the high alcohol starts to ring in. A bit more body to ballast against the booze, please.

 

500ml bottle. Poured out an opaque, jet-black color with a small. cream-colored head of foam. It left sudsy patches of lace on the glass. It smelled of coffee, sweet maltiness and chocolate. Very sweet tasting with maltiness, chocolate, toffee and caramel.