I have a bit of a hard time weighing in, since both times I've used it for BVIP I've added medium or medium plus toast French oak. My recollection of tasting the extra beer at kegging, prior to adding vanilla and toasted oak, does not include smoky phenolics... just a very expressive porter. So expressive in fact, that I had no qualms about adding the vanilla and bourbon to balance it out a bit.
By the way, I've only sourced Crisp brown malt via MoreBeer. The only other beer I've made that used it was Jamil's McQuaker Stout, but that was only a pound in 10 gallons of beer.
This last batch I had previously bought Thomas Faucett for the brew and decided that I knew how good Crisp worked last time so bought it instead once I re-sourced it.