A Nice Roasty Porter.

Well on the weekend, we probably drank a few too many of Sons of Liberty, and man what a great beer. Here are some notes on it:

AROMA: Roasted Malts, chocolatey roast aroma, slight hint of sweetness, this could be the fruity american hops trying to break through, perfect balance.
APPEARANCE: Crystal clear, opaque black colour, with ruby highlights. this really cleared up nicely with a short cold crash and an even shorter secondary, it seems I've worked out a pretty good process for clearing the beers up a bit.
FLAVOUR: Rich Malt, probably a tad sweet the additional 2 gravity points I wanted would of made this a real winner. even 1 point would of made it better. rich and malty, with a dry roasty finish, very "Robust". Good balance of bitterness to the beer., not hoppy just a hint of something, either the sweetness of the hops trying to do something/mixing together.
MOUTHFEEL: Thick, very thick, and rich, perfect carbonation at around 2.2 volumes. Head is sticky and a nice lacing down the glass. indicates to me a good creamy feel.

OVERALL: A good solid Porter, definitely on the list for re-brewing. Possibly with Challenger to see if I can establish the unidentified flavour coming through. Rich, thick and malty, with the perfect bitterness to style. Advice from the brew guys in Christchurch was to increase gravity by a couple of point, to assist with attenuation, and drop the temp down to 67 for mash temp. the other advice was to use an english hop, see what the differences are, and they felt the Amarillo hops were a bit wasted here.
NHC Beer Number 1, worthy of mention.

Big weekend coming up too.
I'm bottling the Knights of Freedom. This is a final gravity which happens to be 1.012
I'm also doing my first double brew day. Epic weekend coming up.