porter – Página 2 – Let's Learn Beer!

cosied up

por Ceit
noviembre 2, 2022noviembre 2, 2022

One of the other dark beers pulled off the shelf at Hop Hop Hurra, Pohjala’s Cosy Nights Vanilla Porter. The shopkeep was impressed with the choice, saying he was just blown away by it. Pohjala is a very respectable source of beer, especially the dark beers I’ve found, and it looks like there will be some drizzly days ahead. Perfect for a porter at home!

Good color and fizzy head, looking on the slimmer side for feel. It has something of a vanilla ice cream aroma. The first sip is oddly tickly, with a tiny feeler of bitter, but then it smooths out into something more candy-like, and the vanilla is definitely leading the way. It has something more of a coating feel in the mouth, not a beer that slides on and disappears, although not sticky at first. There’s a shadow of licorice and coffee boiling up in the middle, fortunately for me the licorice remains just a whisper. It has a definite warming effect, very appropriate to being a winter porter, and just the thing when you’re suffering a little cold. After a while there’s some kind of banana flavor sneaking in, giving it even more of a pudding sensation. In the end, there’s much to recommend the beer, it’s tasty and it’s calming, it goes perfectly with its own name. A fine choice indeed.

Supplier: Hop Hop Hurrah

Price: €5.75

in the shadows

por Ceit
septiembre 21, 2022septiembre 21, 2022

So finally we had some rain yesterday, a good day for sitting in the window and sipping on a nice dark beer. I kept my porter until today, though. When I was browsing, there it was, sitting proudly on the shelf, all in its brown bottle, like a cone of chocolate. Onso porter might not have that chocolate touch, though, being porter rather than stout. There will probably be a little fruitiness to it, which is acceptable. Now that it’s not 100 damn degrees out, even a little black beer stickiness won’t be so bad. Cerveza Rodonda, show me what you got.

Extra foamy, and I’m a little surprised the bottle didn’t overflow on opening. The head is barely tinted beige, but the beer carries a pretty good dark color. It’s dark brown, not black, but good enough. There isn’t a strong puff of aroma at first, but letting it sit out allows just a hint of pickled plum to waft out and settle over the area near the bottle. In the glass there’s more of a light raisiny scent. The taste also has a lot of dried fruit rather than fresh, prunes and raisins over plums or apples. As a porter I would expect it to have some fruit to it, and along these lines. It’s a very subtle and unassuming flavor, displaying a little heft in the mouth but going down softly and not leaving hardly anything behind. Left to its own devices, the beer develops a wisp of smoke in the aftertaste, adding some interest and complexity to a solid but otherwise simple brew.

Supplier: Birra Y Paz

Price: €3.70