Mad Sød
Mikkeller ApS

Bottle: Poured a clear dark brown color ale with a nice light brown foamy head with good retention and light lacing notes. Aroma of chocolates notes with light roasted malt is pleasant enough. Taste is also dominated by black chocolates notes with light dry roasted malt notes. Light coffee notes can also be distinguished. Body is a bit light for style with good carbonation. Not bad but can’t say that I can taste the popcorn and the body is too thin.

 

 

 

750ml bottle, Sød = Sweet, as 'MAD' appears to be the collaborative effort of Mikkeller and the oft-cited Mielcke & Hurtigkarl Danish restaurant, and since the latter doesn't do the actual brewing (that's left to De Proef, as per usual), methinks this belongs right here. Oh, and this is made with popcorn - yeah.

This beer pours a solid abyssal black, with the barest of basal cola edges, and a teeming tower of puffy, rocky, and duly foamy beige head, which leaves a stellar sudsy Mercator projection lace pattern around the glass as it very slowly abates.

It smells of gritty medium-dark chocolate, crackery caramel malt, some very mild milk-dosed coffee notes, a strange corn husk weirdness that I guess I'm going to attribute to the 'popcorn' adjunct, and prominent earthy, leafy, and faintly floral hops. The taste is crisp, grainy caramel malt, chocolate wafers, ethereal cold coffee, sugary black licorice, a softly lactic, um, 'sweetness', faint essences of Saturday nights as a kid, my mom popping corn while we watch HNIC downstairs, and earthy, leafy, and kind of weedy hops.

The carbonation is pretty understated, for the most part, barely a pip or tic to be had for a song here, the body a decent medium-full weight for any of the given porter sub-styles, and more or less smooth, the alcohol the only metric capable of ingress here, but even it seems less than interested, (thankfully, I feel it necessary to say). It finishes on the sweet side (of course), the cocoa, muted caramel, and burgeoning booze representing the cause.

As I've already intimated - yeah, I'm not really of the belief that 'popcorn' can have any sort of effect on the brewing process (look up watermelon if you want to form a support group), whether it's the kernel or popped variety employed - that's not stated. Anyways, a decent strong porter, otherwise, which I think has a lot more ore to mine. And hey, M. O'Donavan, I hope this helps you in your quest to determine this one's validity amongst the rest of the best.