Clash London Porter
The Revolutions Brewing Company

Coffee coffee coffee and more coffee. A bit sweet and quite oily. If you like your porters coffee based then this is it. Very nice.

 

Drank on cask (hence the high look score) at Picadilly Tap
Okay more Should I stay than Working for the Clampdown
but still a better than average dark beer

Oxblood-tinged chocolate black with steady carpet of tan foam that rings.
Carob, toasted nuts and a bit of Terry's Chocolate Orange on the nose.
Oily coffee bean, earth, rusks, and milk chocolate then big cedar and tangerine hops hit .
York Peppermint Patty finish and numbing orange oil linger.
Med-lt, lively, slight chew, oily.

Hops take a few sips to peak out from under the dark malts, but they hit hard when they do - almost citronella levels of oily citrus. Call this a Black IPA and I might not argue. Maybe a bit thin, but dangerously easy, too.

Coming in a 500ml brown bottle, not bottle-conditioned; BB 02/2014, served cool in a straight imperial pint glass. Notes: the beer label says this is “A true clash of styles. A Porter born in England with a big American influence.” It doesn’t mention in what way exactly the beer is influenced, though… (What else, hops, I presume??)

Appearance: pours a pitch black colour, a creamy tan head with good retention.
Smell: gristy roast malts dominate the nose with more chocolaty hints than coffee, added with a tinge of light dark fruits at the back; a good swirl gives rise to underlying aroma of fragrant hops (American hops, most likely), roast nuts, creamy coffee with a touch of alc. Very pleasant.
Taste: mildly effervescent, refreshing, the foretaste is quite… quiet, packed with lots of deep roast maltiness and roast barley with their coffee-ish burned taste, underlined by an earthy bite of hops and a decent level of acidity; the aromatic hops don’t taste a lot on the palate, while the mixed bitterness from hops and roast malts lingers towards a mildly dry, moderately bitter finish. As the tasting goes, the finishing touch interestingly becomes more and more bitter as well…
Mouthfeel & Overall: softly-carbonated, full-bodied for its abv., the flavour is far more in line with a conventional Porter, or even a Stout, than with anything that comes with “a big American influence”, IMO. Not bad.