Double Polar Bear
Ludlam Island Brewery

 

Thanks MacMalt! NBS BIF #13
Deep burnished Spanish leather in hue, sandy to mocha colored head asserts 2 full fingers before lazily settling in to a clumpy half inch cap. Bountiful retention and clouds of lacing. Quite lovely.
Nose is vibrant. Charred sweet notes begin, followed by deeper, roastier tones. Coffee, charred barrel, tobacco, and smoke.
Flavor begins with the feel contributing the initial drag. Almost a fluffy milk stout delivery carries mildly sweet, beautifully charred malt notes. The bitter roast is more subtle and varied here. Starts a bit woody, then moves through a creamy sweetness, and then back to an earthy tobacco-meets-coffee swirl that moves throughout the mouth. An ever so slight vanilla note hangs on the tongue at the finish.
Mouthfeel is great. Full enough for people who think they don't like porters because they want a stout. But still a porter, albeit a slightly "creamy" one. Carbonation is light, but keeps things moving. ABV is hidden.
Overall, as a beer lover that has moved away from stronger smokes, this is a pleasant refresher, and it reminds me of what I used to get excited about. The complexity is excellent.

No evident canning date. Poured into a stemless glass. It pours a deep mahogany with dark, ruby-cola hues, and a thick, frothy, medium khaki-colored head and spotty lacing. Its nose is roasty with notes of earthy char, burnt nuts, tobacco ash, woodsmoke, and vanilla. The smell improves as it warms in the glass. The taste offers a pleasant blend of harsh, bitter char and soft, creamy vanilla. As it breathes it opens considerably and I begin to taste baker's chocolate and tobacco. Also, the vanilla bean becomes more pronounced as it warms. It's quite smoky; in fact, I would characterize it as a Smoked Porter although the brewery labels it and Imperial Porter. It's relatively thick and creamy for the style with lite/moderate carbonation, and you can feel the 10% ABV. Overall, Double Polar Bear nicely reconciles the attributes of smoky bitterness and vanilla sweetness. I gave it "style points" for its originality. Its whole exceeds the sum of its parts. It's worth seeking out.

Ludlam Island Brewery "Double Polar Bear Porter"
16 oz. can without production codes or freshness dating
$5.49 @ Roger Wilco, Pennsauken, NJ

Notes via stream of consciousness: So this is a smoked vanilla porter at 10% ABV? Interesting. I wonder how the vanilla will fare against the smoke. It's poured a somewhat clear dark mahogany brown colored body beneath a massive head of tan colored foam. The aroma expresses a little bit of vanilla and some chocolate but I'm not finding any smoke. It's taking quite some time for the head to diminish, and where it has already dropped there's some nice lacing. I'm going to guess that that will continue once I get a proper head on it. So now I wait... OK, that took an additional couple of minutes but that's OK because I like to let my beers warm up a little from fridge temp. The head is nicely creamy now as well. On to the taste... the vanilla is clear, and there's a lot of additional caramel mixed in with the chocolate. I even get the smoke in the end although I'm not sure how I feel about that right now. It's like a dessert beer but it's also kind of rough with an aggressive bitterness, some phenols from the smoke, and a snap of alcohol. Back to the flavors though, I get the vanilla up front followed by lots of caramel and then the chocolate. The chocolate is like chocolate fudge or milk chocolate, but there is a touch of darker chocolate to it as well. From the the bitterness cuts in , and in my mind throws it off. Not that I want it to be sweet, because it is pretty damned sweet, but the bitterness is abrupt and far from smooth. I feel that the alcohol and smoke are lending to that, and so the actual level of bitterness might not be off, it may just seem that way due to the other things that are going on. It finishes rough, acrid, and in my mind, unpleasant. I'm not sure what the smoke is but it doesn't seem like Beechwood. In any case, I'm guessing the smoke is overdone, and yet at the same time I'm not sure how much you'd get out of it if it wasn't at this level. I'd suggest they look for a different wood to use because this isn't working nearly as well as it could. In the mouth it's medium-full in body, somewhat oily, and crisp. The great lacing that I was expecting unfortunately never materialized. It's good, don't get me wrong, but I was expecting to be thicker and fuller than it is. It's still a solid 4.25 out of 5 though. In the end I think this beer has great potential but it's divided between vanilla, caramel and milk chocolate halfway across the palate, and then bitterness, dark chocolate, and acrid smokiness in the finish with a splash of drying alcohol.
Review #6,957