Knoll Street Porter
Bazens' Brewery Co Ltd

I first tasted this beer on cask at the NWAF 06, Manchester, where it was judged as Gold Medallist for the Stouts&Porters category. So tasty was the ale, that I decided to take away a bottle-conditioned version with me back to London. BB Dec. 06, served cool in a jug.

A: deeply brownish colour with reddish hints; coming with a tight and thick foamy tan head sustaining throughout the drink--truly a dream for a bottled beer...
S: harmonious aroma for a porter, as the dark fruitiness and roasted maltiness intertwine so smoothly--black plums, lightly sour-sweet dark chocolates (70%), cocoa powder, faintly sour edge of filtered coffee, treacles... buttressed by a smooth flow of aromatic fruity hoppyness underneath. Overall it contains some elements common to some English stout as well as hoppy premium bitter. Quite complex~~
T: the roasted dark malty palate yields an increasingly bitter charred and smoked flavour, leading to bitter dark chocolaty taste; the second layer of semi-sweet fruity flavour quietly develops, like dried dates plus fruity hops. Lingering and lively coffeeish bitterness and increasingly herbal, smoky and dryish malty aftertaste round off the palate, but the slightly thinning-out finishing texture suggests some wheats maybe being used.
M&D: retaining a creamy and lively texture due to microscopic fizz; medium-full flavoured porter with an unusually dryish bitter aftertaste, perhaps because of the smoked malts used in this brew. There's no way to compare it with its cask-conditioned counterpart as I didn't make detailed notes on the cask version, though I recall the cask beer is silky smooth and softer in texture and deeper in flavour, just as any cask-conditioned dark beer should be. That said, I still take the bottled attempt as a very good reflection of this deservedly winner~~ Complex, solid, worth slow tasting.