HaandBryggeriet Porter

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 6 | Overall: 8

Pours dark brown with faint hue of purple and decent minute long mocha head. The aroma is mix of milk and dark chocolate, some dark roastiness and burnt molasses. The bold taste is pushed forward by assertive carbonation creating a slightly harsh burnt note to go along with some coffee, burnt molasses and dark chocolate. IT evens out nicely toward the finish creating a pleasing after taste. Very nice flavor that might benefit from a little less carbonation to soften up the slightly harsh start. It ends wonderfully though.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 5 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

It pours a dark-brown/black with thin light-brown/tan head and not much lace remnants. A tart aroma of coffee, chocolate, dates, nuts, some citrus, and mild spiciness. The mouthfeel is too thin. Flavors of chocolate, coffee, light hops, citrus, light molasses, raisins, nuts, and spiciness. Decent, but I was expecting more for my first norwegian brew.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Pour was nice, good pillowy head, color was a bark brown almost black. Aroma was of roasted chocolate some licorice. Flavor was much the same, light smokiness in there, something off in there little astringent but not bad. Not my favorite style but good anyway.

Aroma: 10 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 10 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 9

AKA Norse Porter. Aroma is rich and smoky, strongly of roast coffee with a hint of chocolate. It pours a very dark sable, nearly black, with a thick, fine-bubbled, cinnamon-tan head. Mouth-filling flavor is very smoky with tones of chocolate and coffee and just a whisper of sweetness. There is a hint of molasses as well. Texture is thick, oily and smooth, and leaves a tingle as it goes down.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Bottle from SL. The pour featured a very generous pillowy-rocky head, deep brown-black body, lacing decent all the way down. The aroma was chocolate, light roast, some licorice. The flavor followed, chocolate, licorice, faint metallic notes (but in a decent way, mildly astringent), and light smoke/ash/roast in the finish. Mouthfeel was full for the style, but airy and dry, not sticky sweet, quite dry actually, with that slightly acidic and astringent touch. For a porter, pretty good, but the brown ale-porter range of dark beers have long been leaving me in want of more when done.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 9 | Mouthfeel: 8 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

Batch# 78, brewed may 7- Norse porter poured a coal black body with a thick dark tan cap. Aromas were really nice with raisin, plum,cherry, chocolate, and roasted coffee. Upon first sip an earthy, spicey malt flavor, with a chocolate middle and a dry coffee finish. Overall I really liked this porter great aroma, good taste, the one draw back is the price but you get what you pay for.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Bottle was labeled as Norse Porter. A very nice porter from Norway. Not the biggest or hugely complex of porters, but an easy to drink, flavorful, nice smelling beer is always welcome. Aroma is roasted malts, dark chocolate with just a subtle twang of underlying bitterness. Appearance is black, with a nice tan head, thick and creamy. Flavors were much the same as it was with the aroma. Dark chocolate and roasted malts had top billing. The bitterness level remained, which had that espresso-like bitterness. Finish was a tad chalky. Still, a very enjoyable porter. Once I would definitely drink again.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 8 | Overall: 7

Brewed June 2007; Sampled March 2008
Very well carbonated, a careful pour yields a four-finger thick, lightly browned head in my 25cl tulip glass. The beer is an opaque, concentrated, dark-chocolate brown to black color, but does in fact show a touch of ruby hues through it if held up directly and at the right angle to the light. The aroma is slightly vinous (earthy notes are mixed in here), with roasty dark malt notes. Substantial toasted grain, browned bread and dark chocolate notes are noticeable towards the end, while up front notes of wine-like berry notes, burnt plums and brown malt plays a prominent role. Wood-like, earthy and almost a mushroom like aromatic notes provide a bit of an edge to a normally clean style of beer (at least from a modern perspective); for some reason it makes me thing of fermented cocoa, but I don't even know what that really is.

Lightly sweet up front with a burnt plum note. As the beer moves across the tongue it picks up substantial roast grain flavors, but then starts to pick up a funky, vinous, earthy, wild mushroom flavor to it that ultimately dissipates under a bitter, burnt grain character that lingers on in the finish. Soft chocolate flavors and the omnipresent burnt malt flavors are clearly the dominant flavors of this brew, but there is just enough light funk to add some interesting notes to this beer. I am quite impressed with how the vinous, woody, earth notes intermingle with the roast character, but don't overwhelm or put this beer out of balance. As the beer warms up a bit the texture moves from being a little on the thin side to having enough heft to balance the flavors of this beer. The malt also provides a touch more sweetness and a bit more cocoa flavors than it did before. The roast notes become a touch lest acidic, a bit less bitter and more rounded as the beer warms up to, this really allows the underlying earthiness of the brew to open up.

An interesting brew, the funky notes seem to be just starting to be apparent here. I have a feeling that this isn't going to be getting much better though as the stronger the funk gets the more it will clash with the dark malt character. My recommendation is to drink it up. It has probably lost a bit of body and malt richness at this point, but the earthy, vinous flavors add some variety and complexity to this brew that would not otherwise be here. I would really like to think that this captures the character of a Porter from the 1800s, fresh porter blended with an old funky version.

Purchased: Plaza Liquors, Tucson AZ

Aroma: 9 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 7 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 8

Very dark brown/black colour, mediumsized brrown head. Aroma is roasted malts and weak coffee. Flavour is roasted malts with some hoppy hints. Also some yeast. Strong hops also in both aroma and flavour.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 7 | Overall: 7

Black with alow bubbly beige head. Malty and roasted aroma of coffee and bitter chocolate. Dark chocolate and roasted malts in flavour with a dry finish of chocolate. Simple and rather tasty.