I found this beer at Wild Oats in Portland, Maine last week. $8.99 US for a six and it comes with the "Pry Off" cap - click the photo for the details. Why twist when you can pry?

First, this is not an old school porter with the required sourness up front in the vein of, say, Grants or that relatively unfortunate Sleemans experiment of last Christmas. This is a malty modern version, somewhat like the Cooperstown Benchwarmer but a bit bigger, with more graininess. Porters like these are actually the first beers a home brewer should try as there is lots of flavour but not one stands out for the style to be respected. There is a lot of room for both error and expression.

So, the Butte Creek take is a dark mahogany brew under a quickly dissipating white head. There is that pumpernickle-molasses rich dark sweetness with an edge of rough non-citric hop cutting the cloy. In the side by side with the Benchwarmer, there I note a bit of lime in the hop, giving it a bit of a vineous quality, there but nothing like an Ithaca Nut Brown. Compared to those two, the Butte Creek has none of it. It is more like a pale ale in its focus on grain with the hop playing the supporting role. At the bottom, however, there is a nice tang which I am guessing is more yeast than hop. All in all pretty fine.

Some advocatonians really disagree but check out their views as well as all the porters we have discussed at A Good Beer Blog here.