Hopkins Porter Fume
Boquébière

 

**Well worth taking your time with. The flavors warm up nicely.**

A:
Pours an inky black with a huge, creamy brown head that settles but generally sticks around. Great retention; nice stringy lacing.

S:
Malty, pitchy, sticky, burnt. Chocolate and nutty roast malt aromas prevail. Peppery smoked meat underneath it all.

T:
Rich and earthy. Coffee and brown sugar with good carbonation up front followed by increasing dry hop flavors and mellower chocolate and wood tastes.

M:
Thin and bubbly. Medium body. Rich, decadent.

O:
This is a really good beer. These guys pretty consistently have killer stuff.
Really good example of a porter (not sure if it necessarily is of a smoked porter, though). I see that some people have said you can't taste the smoke very much. I feel like it is a very prevalent flavor but that it doesn't taste like I thought it would. Smoked, not smoky. Or something.
Good sippin' beer. Will keep in mind for the colder months.
Would have again.
Worth trying.

 

Bottle: Poured a black color porter with a large foamy head with great retention and some very good lacing. Aroma of light smoke notes with light roasted malt and a subtle hint of lactose. Taste is a mix between some smoked notes which are not as dominant as I had expected with some roasted malt and some light sweet undertones. Body is about average with good carbonation and no apparent alcohol. Well made though personally I would have liked more smoked character to come out.

 

The beer is black in color, quite dark too for a Porter. The head is brown. Typical. Tenacious. Nice. The aroma is roasted malts, smoky and slightly chocolaty. Nice. The taste is chocolate with a bitterness typical of coffee grains. Very good in the mouth. A little bit too carbonated... yeah, makes it thin bodied too. The taste lingers in the mouth, something that I like very much.

As it warms up a bit, the beer shows some woody notes. A good porter over all, not extraordinary, but above average.

Bottle from Sammy, 500ml into a tulip. Lot # has been left blank.

Black body, almost impenetrable to light save for the thinnest violet hue at the edge of the glass. A dirty mocha head, voluminous in quantity along the lines of the rest of this series. Nose has some sweet smokey notes, a bit of dark chocolate and some roast. Taste has more roast and and less smoke, although both are prominent. Slightly burnt malts, mocha, milk chocolate and perhaps some sweet syrupy flavours. Lightly ashy finish. Medium feel and a bit sticky. Medium low carbonation. A good, sweeter smoked porter.

Black body with ruby highlights, good finger of dense rocky beige head.

Smoked malt, cracker, bit of bacon/hickory sticks, salty minerals, a touch of caramel underneath, earthy hops. Okay nose but nothing special.

Seems like a decent smoked porter but the carbonation is really distracting. Moderately smoked malt and decently-balanced with a light sweetness but with an earthy character overall. No alcohol showing.

Pretty overcarbonated. The mouthfeel seems something like a highly carbonated Belgian ale. I can't say bottle fermentation fits this style too well, or not in this case anyway.

This isn't a terrible beer, just not a standout as a smoked porter.

Enjoyed bottle at Mondiale 2011. Black and lacey and dry. Very good drinkability, whose taste made its way through the varied tastes of the past days' selections. Average mouthfeel, well balanced.Smoke aromas are pleasant.Their first porter. Brewery has picked it up a notch.