Wraith Brewery - Poltergeist Porter

Aleman · Feb 8, 2010

This was one nice beer.
Poured well with a nice head that faded all to quickly. . . . slightly fruity aroma, with little hop nose evident (as per style), was surprised not to get any roast notes though. Taste wise . . . very smooth, and 'plummy', nice malt notes slight bitterness, but clean and crisp tasting. The expected roast malt flavours are missing however, which does detract from this beer . . . if you are after a typical porter. AS a dark mild this beer is excellent (If a tad dark), a real easy drinking, thirst quencher, but lacks the bite and attack from the roast malts that a true porter would provide. . . . a slight tart sourness would be welcome as well as traditionally porters would eb a blend of stale and mild beers. . . . very early porters would also have exhibited a slight smokiness (but only very slight) which is also missing here.

Overall a very nice easy drinking beer that I enjoyed . . . and would probably have ordered another. With some changes to the grain bill a more authentic porter could result as it stands this is just too 'nice'

Muddydisco · Feb 9, 2010

Thanks A :thumb:
The brewday had some nightmares so that might be why i'm missing some things. Also this was my first real recipe I created and brewed all on my own, and it was before I chewed my malts! I now know what I need to tweak to make this a little better

This will be my House beer, so I can keep tweaking it :grin:

tubby_shaw · Mar 24, 2010

I have had three bottles of this in total from md and I must admit to just necking two of them

These pictures are from the first bottle I received

The review is a combination of all three bottles

The bottle was well presented as usual, it opened with a slight hiss and poured to give a good creamy head which lasted until the beer was half drunk.
There is no great aroma from the beer, but what I do pick up is a hint of a sherry and black treacle.
The taste is also reminiscent of black treacle with only a slight roast flavour, this beer is very well balanced, there is no dominance between the hop bitterness and malt sweetness.
I must admit that this has been one of the hardest beers that I have had to review, I really like this beer but I have dragged my feet in reviewing it as I couldn't find much in the way of words to describe it.
What has struck me tonight on sitting down and taking my time over this bottle is that nothing jumps out as a single characteristic that can be picked up on and I think that this is where this beer wins, it is a really easy drinking session beer that doesn't have one single stand out characteristic, it's not hoppy or malty or smokey or fruity, it's just a damn fine well balanced beer

Muddydisco · Mar 24, 2010

Oh :grin: sorry to have made you think hard about this one TS.

tubby_shaw · Mar 24, 2010

muddydisco said:
Oh :grin: sorry to have made you think hard about this one TS.

Don't do it again :lol:

Brew Richard · Jun 13, 2010

Aleman said:
This was one nice beer.
Poured well with a nice head that faded all to quickly. . . . slightly fruity aroma, with little hop nose evident (as per style), was surprised not to get any roast notes though. Taste wise . . . very smooth, and 'plummy', nice malt notes slight bitterness, but clean and crisp tasting. The expected roast malt flavours are missing however, which does detract from this beer . . . if you are after a typical porter. AS a dark mild this beer is excellent (If a tad dark), a real easy drinking, thirst quencher, but lacks the bite and attack from the roast malts that a true porter would provide. . . . a slight tart sourness would be welcome as well as traditionally porters would eb a blend of stale and mild beers. . . . very early porters would also have exhibited a slight smokiness (but only very slight) which is also missing here.

Overall a very nice easy drinking beer that I enjoyed . . . and would probably have ordered another. With some changes to the grain bill a more authentic porter could result as it stands this is just too 'nice'

One question about the forum: how you managed to insert images in the post text?
Thanks Aleman.
Richard