Bear Creek Porter
Northwest Brewhouse and Grill

Pours a dark black/brown with a cream tan head that is a beauty, lacing is suspect. The smell is very strong of smoked wood and BBQ. Hints of molasses seep through the nostrils, a hint of cocoa and espresso. The tase is very burnt, roasted nuts and espresso, very smoky. Thick and dense for a porter, good but can get overly smoky, one was fine with me.

Out of a bottle purchased at the pub by my travelin' buddy Rob, thanks my man! Out of the sixer, some have labels some don't so they gave him some of the labels to put on himself. Now thats a new one I've never heard of.

Solid black with a very slight dark brown tone to its body. Nice and frothy tan cap that sits for a good while before sitting as a thick skim always present. Lace all over the glass in thinly sandy, globby sheets.

Aroma is nice and chocolatey, good black malt base thats roasty and presently firm on the nose. Slight coffee hints, but overall mostly chocolate and cocoa with a cookie dough freshness and sweetening.

Taste starts out roasted with a nice presense of strong roasted malts, not burnt, sweet front with a chocolate middle that remains for a bit before a nice little hop twinge and bite plays over the roastyness making for a nice bittering finish thats mild and pleasantly smooth and calm. More hints of sweet chocolate bitterness in the end as well. Nice tastin' porter.

Feel is about medium bodied with a smooth, creamy start, sweet and roasty front, bitter and chocolate end. A solid porter thats quite drinkable. Glad I have more....but it still won't last long in my fridge.

Appearance – Black as night with a modest head.

Smell – Light porter aroma of dark, roasted malts and cocoa powder. There are also some balancing hops in there.

Taste – This one is more on the mild side. The traditional porter flavors are there, albeit a bit subdued. Add to this the big hop balance and you’ve got a pretty tame ale.

Mouthfeel – No carbonation and somewhat refreshing.

Drinkability – This went down well.

Comments – I think it’s very difficult to pull off the hopped porter taste. Key to this is that the porter flavors have to be huge. Rogue does a good job of it, but I thought this one was too mild to do the trick.

Nice dark black color. Fairly evident roasted/burnt flavors reminiscent of coffee with a slight hint of chocolate. Nice medium body. Pretty well balanced with a decent hop bite to the finish.