From February’s Beer of the Month Club (yes, I get behind on reviews. And?) came Atwater Block‘s Vanilla Java Porter. Atwater Block Brewery is located in Detroit, in their historic Rivertown district, and was established 12 years ago, in 1997. They say:

We are able to brew our brands in the true heritage style of German lagers. With our imported Kasper Schultz brew house, only the finest malt and hops from Germany are used to brew our lagers and only the finest American hops for our specialty Ale’s.

Their Vanilla Java Porter is a 6% specialty beer if I’ve ever heard of one… it’s blended with vanilla and coffee beans to produce a very flavorful and drinkable beer.

Appearance: Cola-brown, with a light tan head.

Smell: Vanilla, a touch of chocolate and coffee. Very pleasant, overlaying roasted malts.

Taste: Sweet vanilla over a dry porter profile that’s reminiscent of soda pop like cola, but not quite. Some coffee but not as prominent as the vanilla.

Mouthfeel: Thin of medium; clean and pleasantly drinkable with a dry(ish) finish.

Overall: Interesting and tasty, with very enjoyable vanilla character.

The review sites don’t enjoy it as much. On BeerAdvocate, it scores an overall grade of C+. On RateBeer, it scores 2.79 out of 5 and is in their 28th percentile.