All About Beer Magazine

Beer Talk

Samuel Adams Honey Porter

Published March 2007, Volume 28, Number 1

• Roger Protz

  Red/brown color with a vast, fluffy head. The big aroma is dominated by honey and roasted grain. Sweet honey coats the tongue balanced by a sudden burst of hop bitterness, with dark grain and coffee notes. Smooth, honey-led finish with good balancing bitterness from hops and dark grain, with hints of chocolate and coffee.

• Fred Eckhardt

  Another friendly expressive head. Invitational aromatics summon one to imbibe. The honey is there along with great roastiness in the malt, and the balance is finely honed on the palate. It all comes together in a beautiful way. The Golding hops in this bring the malt roastiness and the honey to a fine finish.

• John Hansell

  Quite honeyed on the nose — even more than I would have expected — with some background chocolate and black licorice. The honey’s flavors are more evenly positioned on the palate, along with black licorice, dark chocolate, darkly toasted multigrain bread and fig. And a roasty, dry finish keeps the beer from being too sweet.