Deschutes Black Butte Porter

Black Butte Porter. Deschutes Brewery. Bend, Oregon.

5.5% ABV.

I love porter!

I’ve previously enjoyed this brewery’s Obsidian Stout.

Appearance

Black.

Slightly tan head fades fast.

Sometimes hard to rate these black beers as having a good appearance, especially when the have no head, but this one has a head.

It looks like a beer.

And that’s usually what I want out of beer.

3

Smell

No smell.

I must have coronavirus. For real this time? Another false alarm? What is wrong with my nose? I don’t have the nose for beer tasting. Am I a beer-tasting failure?

No smell.

Aimee objects: “No! It smells like caramel and banana”.

Clearly, she does not have the coronavirus.

Aimee unpeels a banana and makes me smell it. That does indeed smell like a banana.

I smell the beer.

No banana.

Aimee is now eating the banana. I am disappointed in her beer-tasting discipline. She has banana-palate now.

I smell the beer again.

Nothing.

I am obligated to rate this lowly, though it does not smell offensive.

2

Taste

It’s simple.

Malty.

More bitter than some porters, which I appreciate. I don’t love beers that are just malt, though I do love malty beers.

I wish this were hoppier still though.

It tastes like malt. I have no other description. Just simple and malty.

The Ayinger Celebrator dopplebock was another beer I recently had that I could only describe as malty, just super prominent malt and nothing else.

This is darker and roastier and not as sweet.

That one I didn’t like much at all.

This is a decent drinking beer.

3

Mouthfeel

This is not a heavily carbonated beer, and porters without a lot of carbonation really hit you with the syrupy mouthfeel.

3

Overall

This is surprising and disappointing.

I thought their Obsidian Stout was excellent, a beer I could drink all the time, and I expected this to be comparable.

Now I want to go back and review a case of those again. Have my tastes changed? They constantly do.

And thankfully so; life is so interesting when things are changing.

Anyway, this is fine, but boring.

I wish it had more character, more hops, more carbonation. Just something to help it stand out.

3