Left Hand Black Jack Porter
A traditional London style beer, our Black Jack Porter highlights chocolate malt and Kent Goldings hops. Its slight initial sweetness quickly yields to the distinctive roastiness of the chocolate malt. The Kent Goldings hops perfectly balance the malt, making it very smooth, with a surprisingly clean finish.
3.5
1198 reviews
Longmont, United States
Community reviews
Dégustée à l'été 2016 (De mes notes). .
Originally rated on 12/17/08. Aroma of coffee, some chocolate, smoke and burnt malts. Black body with plenty of carbonation, leaving some lace. Mouthfeel was a little watery, with a slight carbonation bite. Flavors of burnt malts, and very slight hints of chocolate and coffee. Overall a fairly average porter.
Bottle from Liquor Barn. Aroma has coffee, chocolate, and roasted malts balanced with some hop bitterness.
Bottle. Aroma has notes of chocolate and coffee. Pours ruby dark no head. Taste has a slightly smoked quality with clear coffee malt savour.
A rich dark Porter that commands respect especially from those of us who are left handed.
From old tasting notes. Ruby red, brown color. Foamy tan head. Robust roasted malt nose. Sweet roasted malt flavor is both spicy and earthy. Wonderfully complex and flavorful with hints of chocolate, coffee, black pepper and nutmeg. Delicious and a well made Porter.,
355ml bottle. Pours a very dark clear brown colour with a thin beige head, no real lacing and short retention. Aroma of dark fruit, chocolate, coffee, caramel, roasted malt. Taste is exactly like the aroma, the malts are sweet and there’s a very mild bitterness. Mouthfeel is smooth, medium body.
DATE: February 18, 2017... OCCASION: Having finally tracked this one down after a decade of first tasting it, I look forward to remembering it again... GLASSWARE: Hop Devil nonick...pours a dark, opaque body that is velvet-red where light reflects... the head is pure cream, half-finger in height, with a beautiful ring of coral lacing... chocolate, peat, and small hints of spice and hoppiness--small caramel and dankness inhabits its breath... a pleasure to sip, with its creamy introduction giving way to a stern backbone... medium-bodied, agreeable, and hearty... dry at its conclusion.... the chocolate and peat are at the forefront of its profile, while the roasted malts evoke caramel and coffee bean with subtlety and relative sweetness... the sum of its parts, this porter is strong but not bold, formidable yet not big, and drinkable without being thin... worthwhile and a good reason to purchase the mix pack it came in...
Keg Half Pint at White Horse American Beer Festival 2009, Parsons Green, London in July 2009 - Also Bottle - Dark Brown in colour. Malty; roasted malts, dark chocolate, espresso coffee, caramel. Fruity; some dark fruits. Hint of smoke. Hoppy; mild slightly earthy hops. Sweet roast malty throughout. Dry roast malty finish. (2009-07)
355ml bottle from a shop in Xiamen. Pours black with a thin off white head. Aroma of chocolate, cocoa powder and herbs. Sweet chocolate taste. Thin sweet finish.
bottle @ home
clear mahogany, minimal brown head with lacing
chocolate. cocoa powder, caramel, mou
cream, raw licorice, nice bitterness
Bottle, in an alley near the Lama temple in Beijing.
Aroma: 5
Appearance: 9
Taste: 10
Palate: 5
Overall: 18
Shame I did not write anything about this fabulous beer. Only the marks. I was too busy trying to figure out how to go back to hotel.
Scents of bread and coffee. Pours a rich dark brown its an opulent thick tan head. Good lacing. Rich round tastes of caramel, toast and a coffee undertaste. Light carbonation for such a thick head. Very good
Left Hand’s Black Jack Porter has a thin, bone-colored head, a very dark brown appearance, some bubble streams, and almost no lacing left behind. The aroma is of sweet, dark bread crust, toast, chocolate, and medium-roast coffee. Taste is of medium-dark malts, sweetness, low bitterness, brown bread crust, medium-dark toast, and no char. Mouthfeel is light, and Black Jack finishes on the drier side. RJT
Bottle at home. Immediately, I got a strong whiff of yeast when I opened the bottle, like I was in a brewery or bakery. It wasn’t bad, but it overpowered everything else in the aroma of the beer. It tastes good, though, in an understated way, with some chocolate and aniseed, before finishing light and a bit sweet.
Bottle. Dark brown colour, a bit thin looking, bubbles but not much foam. Quite low carbonation. Malty, lots of chocolate. Hint of milky coffee. Not that bitter. Sweet. Light drinking for abv. Milk stout. I get the attempt to separate this from American style porter in the mind of the drinker but I’ve never seen any traditional London porter taste anything like this. Nice though.
20oz, on tap at the brewery in Longmont. Dark brown appearance with slight red hue. Vanilla aroma dominates. Coffee and cream hints. Very easy drinking and surprising not over roasty.
Deep black with medium white head. Aroma is totally vanilla ice cream, some peach as well. Taste is very sweet and a little sourness. More vanilla in the finish, also nuts and cream. Very creamy and smooth. A little too sweet for me. Still not bad.
Very roasty and chocolatey. Starts smooth then the roast takes over, and the finish is slightly bitter. Very good beer. From a bottle at cabin in the MN north shore.
Bottle from Wegmans. Dark brown with a little bit of head, medium body. Caramel malt aroma, chocolate with coffee undertone taste. Mild malt finish, perfectly decent traditional Porter.
Tap. Dark brown color with amber highlight and a tan head. Aroma is cocoa powder, nutty, earthy. Taste is earthy, a bit roasted, molasses, quite light-bodied. Medium carbonation. Not too sweet. Feels quite archetypical and not too modern. Good.
Great brewer, great porter. Yes it’s very English and understated. Not pushing any boundaries. Chocolate and vanilla in the malty lightish body with some mildly floral, spicy notes from the hops. Well put together and a good example of the style.
Left Hand porter trying to connect with the style’s English origins. Moussy, pale greyish beige, medium thick head breaking quickly in the middle but well retaining on the edges and in a few thin veils of foam in the middle; deep dark bronze colour with ruby red hue, but fully translucent. Aroma of wet cocoa powder, fudge, some FFF (freshly fermented farmland), hint coffee grounds, milk chocolate, walnut shell, raisins, soggy brown bread, fresh fig, damp tree leaves, brown sugar, cold black tea somewhere, faint candied banana, elderberry, feeble suggestion of liquorish. Sweetish, rounded onset, fig, blackberry, raisin, soft carbo. Pleasantly ’fluffy’ and rounded mouthfeel with somewhat ’stinging’ carbonation, caramelly and nutty malt sweetness with a toasted bittering edge in the end but sweetness prevailing, though a slight ’dim’ sourishness goes through as well, preventing it from becoming too sweet; weak metallic note as well. Well-accomplished finish of ongoing malt sweetness, a tad chocolatey in the very end, paired with this pleasant toasted bittering edge and, all the way at the back, a hint of spicy, leafy hop bitterishness enhancing the toasted bitterness without taking over. I also get a glow of warming alcohol, which should not be the case in a beer below 7% ABV, but it remains subtle. This does come across as very English: Samuel Smith’s Taddy Porter, Fuller’s London Porter or even Meantime London Porter spring to mind and if these English examples are to be considered as semi-archetypes of the contemporary English brown porter style after the style was resurrected from the dead, I can only say that this beer achieves its goal extremely well. It has a light metallic feel to it but that goes for other modern English brown porters as well, and the overall malt profile is very similar to what many more classically oriented English breweries would do with this style. In fact, had I tasted this blind, I’d even situate it in merry old England. Nicely done, convincing as a ’real’, i.e. good old-fashioned brown porter, rather than the often (too) stout-like examples you get from many other breweries across the craft brewing world.
Bottle -Pours black... hardly a head, it went quick. I must have gotten hold of something old; certainly flat. Wasn’t great. Coffee and chocolate notes, yada yada... seemed like a nice porter had it been lively or had creamy head, but it was seriously lacking and weak. I’ll try to re-rate with another, fresher sample.
355ml bottle at the Head of Steam, Durham. Amber pour, with a thin, vanishing mocha head. Faint dark chocolate and coffee aroma. Flavours akin to golden ale, shot through with notes of milk chocolate.
Bottle 35,5cl.
@ Cerveceria Internacional, Seville, Spain.
A: Dark brown.
T: Roasted malt, sweet, chocolate, licorice.
A great porter, with some lovely chocolate malt aromas, but enough hops to cut through the abv.
Reddish black beer, thin white head. Malty coffee aroma. Flavour is similar, with a dash of chocolate, vanilla and some tart, fruity hop. Mellow, hoppy aftertaste.
Pours a very dark brown with a small head. Aroma of roasted malts with a slighty sweet coffee note. Taste is roasted malts, dark chocolate and there is a subtle nuttiness. A smooth beer but a little thin.
Dark brown/black color; Medium slightly creamy body; Aroma of toasted malt, chocolate, & caramel; Flavor of roasted malt, caramel, hops, chocolate, and some nuts; Average but decent.
I could be way off the mark with this but my initial reaction was Black Jack gum! Smells just like a fresh pack! Being a porter of course the sweet sugar taste isn’t present but licorice, licorice, licorice screams outta the glass!