Winterporter
Brouwerij De Molen

 

Brouwerij De Molen 'Winterporter' @ 6.7% , served from a 330 ml bottle purchased for $4
A-pour is cola brown from the bottle to a near black in the glass with a medium size tan head leaving a streaky lace along the pint , couple of floaters on the last swirl & pour
S-bit boozey kinda reminds me of a Baltic
T-a sippin beer for sure , warms as more is consumed , again reminds me of a Baltic
MF-ok carbonation , feels full bodied
Ov-ok beer & Baltic porter
prost LampertLand

 

 

Sour cherry and chocolate, light belgian spice. I've enjoyed their stout, but this is a bit odd... Not sure if the light sourness was intentional?

Day 19 of the BeerAdvent calendar.

Pours deep dark brown with lots of fluffy tan head that lingers and leaves lacing.

Nose has pepper, roasted malt, dark fruit and sour cherry.

Taste has a roasted malt background with a dry sour cherry finish bordering on metallic.

Not bad but not great.

This poured what I thought was pitch black but as I brought it to a better light source it was actually a deep dark red. It poured a thick bubbly off white head, almost like when you quickly pour a bottle of Coke and try an catch it before it over flows. The middle of the head seemed form like the egg whites of a lemon meringue pie. There were some chunky white pieces of sediment but they quickly settled to the bottom. Definitely picked up some dark chocolate notes and some malty caramel surrounded by a mustiness and roasted something, I'm unable to say exactly what. Taste wasn't what I expected almost like a sour beer with some roasted burnt toast edges. There was also a bit of spicy pepper near the end of the finish. Once it settled a bit in my mouth I did get some coffee notes with a bit of baker's chocolate bitterness on the edges. Remember when I said it looked like soda pop, the mouthfeel was exactly the same as you local Coca-Cola or Pepsi. I really wanted to like this beer as I have enjoyed all the beers I've tried from de Molen, but it was a little bi-polar for my tastes. Like it was not quite sure what it wanted to be...a sour, a porter or a winter warmer. The sourness, the fizziness I can actually understand but together it was just distracting.

330ml bottle, day 19 of the 2014 Craft Beer Advent calendar. I'm guessing that this is one of the vaunted 'made specifically for the calendar' brews.

This beer pours a clear (I believe), dark, dark ruby amber hue, with a teeming tower of puffy, densely foamy, and bubbly tan head, which leaves a few chunky swaths of snowdrift lace around the glass as it slowly recedes.

It smells of biscuity, bready caramel malt, tart black fruit, bittersweet chocolate, musty yeast, a faint root beer earthiness, and plain weedy, leafy hops. The taste is gritty, grainy caramel and pale malt, semi-sweet cocoa powder, acrid dark fruit - prunes and dried cherries, mostly - a slight sour milkiness, a touch of brown sugar, and earthy, leafy, and slightly grassy hops.

The bubbles are rather invasive on the palate, manifesting in a tight fizziness at best, the body on the light side of medium weight for the style, and not particularly smooth, see the carbo report for further detail. It finishes off-dry, the chocolate, caramel, and bready malt doing well to persist, alongside a peppy sour fruitiness.

Definitely pushing the boundaries of what an English Porter should be, what with its attendant sourness, which of course, makes it all the more American in style. Not a bad brew, but they really need to dial down the carbonation a few notches (an unmentioned bottle conditioning, maybe?), and then they actually may be on to something here.