Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company
Location: Chico, California, USA
ABV: 5.6%
Version: 12 fl oz bottle

I’ve had quite a few of the beers from this brewery, and they can usually be depended upon to provide a good example of decent American beer. However, I wouldn’t use this Porter to illustrate that point. It certainly looks and smells the part, with its rich dark colour and smooth malty aroma, but when it comes to the taste I found it a huge letdown. The first thing I noticed was too much fizz, more than I like in this type, followed by an overall imbalance in the flavours. The malt was there, but then the bitter quickly pushed in to unpleasantly take over proceedings, spoiling the fun. There could well be more subtle flavourings in there but to be honest I couldn’t get passed the disappointing start, and the taste didn’t improve as time went on. It does seem very popular though, so obviously appeals to plenty of other people, which just goes to show how subjective this whole tasting lark is.