Alt
The Porterhouse Brewing Company

On tap at Porterhouse Central, Oktoberfest.

Pours rusty brown with thin white head that leaves some lace. Smoke and licorice on the nose. Marmite maltiness plus cinnamon, with cellar earthiness, and leafy hops hit at the end. Light, lively, round, with some stickiness.

Fresh, bright flavors and still easy-drinking.

But why is this listed as a Marzen and not an Alt?

(Notes of 29/12/08) Tasted on tap at the Covent Garden branch of Porterhouse. This is probably the chain's special beer, as no specially-designed tap-clip was on display apart from a temporary round-shaped paper clip.

A: bright dark reddish golden in colour, coming with a foamy white head leaving good lace behind, on top of constant streams of tiny fizz.
S: dusty notes precede a "focused" edge of juicy prunes, caramelised berries, clean sourness of doughy lager - soothing. A swirl gives rise to rich pure malt aroma. Not bad.
T: honey-ish pure malts plus a sour-sweet prune-ish fruitiness, ensued by quickly expanding herbal and grassy bitterness on top of a lingering malt aroma that finishes dry with a lightly spicy bite. The very good level of bitterness shows a decent hop backbone, though not as "old" as the original German version.
M&D: slightly too spritzy overall due to the lively fizz, but overall the flavour is decent and the bitter level comes fairly good. A quaffable, dry, malty/fruity brew this is.