Tasting : Deschutes Black Butte Porter clone

Even though I bottled this clone about 6 weeks ago, I really took my time writing up an actual review of the beer. I've had several of them over the past few weeks, and was a little wary of it overall at first. The carbonation took longer to develop compared to most of my beers. I'm not sure if this was due to pooped-out yeast or not, but I'm quite sure it had nothing to do with temperatures, as the bottles were sitting in a room set at about 70 F, which is my typical bottle-conditioning temperature. After awhile, however, the carbonation finally came around.

I was also worried that the beer would be too sweet, as my FG was high at 1.018, compared to the 1.012 target given by the brewer. I admit that that number seems a bit odd to me; with the target OG of 1.058, a FG that low would give an ABV of about 6%, which is much higher than the actual 5.2% listed by Deschutes for the real Black Butte Porter. This would also indicate an apparent attenuation of 79%, much higher than the average of 69% for Wyeast 1968. Either way, I'm pretty happy with how the beer came out. As usual, I don't have any of the commercial beer on hand to compare, unfortunately!

Appearance: Poured with a moderate-large, very creamy tan head. Pretty good retention, sticks around for quite awhile before fading to 1/2-finger. Body is a very dark brown, even black, and appears opaque... but when held to bright light, yields some ruby highlights and excellent clarity.

Aroma: Aroma of mostly dark, rich chocolate... slightly sweet. Some coffee and roasted notes as well, but maybe not as much of the roasted character as their should be. Perhaps a touch of spicy hops in there.

Taste: Again, while there ARE roasted and coffee notes present, the chocolate really wins out in this beer. There is a touch of tartness that may be from the wheat malt. Hop bitterness is moderate-low in the finish, which is more on the sweet than dry side. No diacetyl.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, moderate-low carbonation. Just a bit of astringency (ok).

Overall: My porter experience is much lower than with other beer styles, but this is a pretty tasty beer. I don’t remember the Black Butte being overly roasty, and wouldn’t have expected as much with this recipe, so I think it’s probably in the ballpark of the commercial beer. Pretty enjoyable overall.