Williamsburg AleWerks Washingtons Porter

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

Bottle courtesy of mwiscount. Black brown pour with a tight short tan head, nice lacing. Roasted malt aroma and flavor with a hint of molasses, toasted bread, coffee and cocoa. Nice and flavorful. Thanks Melanie.

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

Strong, smoky aroma has an overtone of cocoa and hints of licorice and miso. It pours an opaque warm sable with a fairly thick tan head that is not overly persistent but leaves some generous lacing. Flavor has a core of roast malt and subtle notes of caramel, molasses and licorice. Texture is a bit on the thin side and not overly fizzy. If not outstanding, still a decent porter.

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

Quite a mixed reception for this entry, I see. Perhaps earlier bottlings fell short, but I find it a very enjoyable quaff. Sampling from a six-pack courtesy of my parents (God bless them) who picked some up at my request on their last visit to Williamsburg. A thinly-headed pour of a very dark, mahogany tone. Malty fragrance with notes of coffee and chocolate, chocolate repeated in the taste, along with some molasses and a hint of coffee. I like it. Not the best in the class, certainly, but worth a try.

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

Black colour, tan head. Classic coffee nose, toast and malty and brown sugar. Extremely vigourous pour produced a small head, but it retains really really well. Some lacing. Nice espresso on the taste, medium bodied, smooth, quite bitter actually, event though the aroma suggests otherwise. I do not personally find any of the tart/sour notes that others detect. This is a great example of the style and quite easy to drink. Well enjoyed. A winner

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

Pours dark brown with a tan/light brown head - thick and it hangs in there for a while... phenomenal lacing. Smooth and rich on the pallette with chocolately roasted malts - slightly sweet and lacking just a bit.

Aroma: 7 | Appearance: 8 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 5 | Overall: 6

Pours deep brown with reddish hue, and clear. Head is light brown, dense, and very (!) long-lasting. Great lacing, too. Pretty amazing variety of sensations in the complex aroma. I get floral and fruity notes over a base of earthy, musty tobacco smells. After such a tantalizing set-up, the flavor was a bit disappointing. Tangy-sour taste, like a coke and listerine cocktail. Mouthfeel is smooth and warming. The sensation is like having a coke throat lozenger. Aftertaste is like cherry pipe tobacco.

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 4 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 2 | Overall: 2

Bottle, poured with a ton of carbonation, really nice looking chocolate head over top of a full brown-black body. Head retention was very solid. The aroma was lightly roasted chocolate. The flavor was a pungent, astringent sour/lactic milky chocolate with a nasty roast bite also in the end, just a really horridly tasting product. Aftertaste full of some metal elements, lingering acidity and astringency. I'm not sure I could brew a more offensive porter and feel guilty passing along a couple of these as bonuses, since this brew was rating a bit better earlier. Ouch!

Aroma: 8 | Appearance: 5 | Mouthfeel: 4 | Flavor: 3 | Overall: 4

Dark brown pour with beautiful fluffy head and excellent lacing...but, I think something was wrong with this bottle. Rich chocolate malts with some coffee, as the aroma indicated, but some god-awful tart sour citrusy acidic yucky zing that just can't be intended (can it?). The beer is overcarbonated as well. It's a shame because I think this would have been a really good beer if that nastiness could be surgically removed.

Aroma: 6 | Appearance: 7 | Mouthfeel: 6 | Flavor: 4 | Overall: 2

Very dark, close to opaque in color. the head is head and one of those that cling together so that it’s able to rise over an inch above the rim without spilling over. The aroma isn’t off, but the flavor is decidedly tart and it covers the other flavors.

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

Pours with an almost four-finger thick, creamy-chocolate brown colored head that sits atop a blackened brown colored brew. The aroma is thick with dark malt aromatics; notes of dark chocolate, blackened malt sugars, toasted malt, lightly roasted coffee beans, some notes similar to burnt malt husks, and heavily toasted crusty bread are all quite prominent. The aroma really has a rich, dark malt character to it that is a mix of roast notes and rich, dark malt sugars; it is quite nice, if perhaps a little simplistic in its focus on dark malt driven aromatics.

Pretty well carbonated, though not overly so, it fizzes a bit as it first hits my tongue. It is not quite as rich as the aroma might suggest, but it is still a bit chewier than one might expect from your typical Porter. The finish has some lingering notes reminiscent of bitter espresso and roast grain husks. A solid malt sweetness is here, but is quite hidden by all of the roast flavors. Tastes something like a coffee, thickened with cream, but without the milk flavors, that has some solid dark chocolate flavors and is lightly sweetened by dark, but not quite burnt caramelized sugar. This really is a chewy, rich Porter and it is quite enjoyable. At times it seems there might be a touch of vegetal like flavor in the finish, though it is only noticeable at times