Serendipity Porter
Beards Brewery

 

 

 

Picked up a sixer in the UP, let’s give one a whirl. Popping the top I get a hint of chocolate and molasses. Pours to a deep opaque brown with a tan head that goes away fast. Taste is zesty mouthfeel semi- sweet transitioning to a bitter bakers chocolate and finishing slightly metallic vanilla and flatly bitter. A nice chalky porter, definitely not too sweet.

 

Very nice porter. Aroma is full of dark chocolate, ground coffee, vanilla, caramel, and dark fruit. Flavors follow the nose, with dark cocoa and char upfront and vanilla and dark cherries on the finish.

Fairly nice, safe, easy to drink porter that I sampled on tap at local restaurant. Pours a deep, dark brown, almost black color with just a little foamy tan head and basically no lacing. Smells surprisingly faintly of medium roast coffee and vanilla, with a hint of roasted nuttiness. Tastes of medium coffee, some lighter milk chocolate, vanilla, caramel, toast and roasted nuts. There was a fair amount of malt at the end. Quite subtle and the coffee was probably the strongest flavor - I was actually expecting more robustness. The low ABV should have tipped me off. Smooth, mild, thin mouthfeel and decent carbonation but the head felt quite bubbly. Enjoyable but next time I would pick a more complex, flavorful porter.

 

 

 

Pours dark brown. Short, thick, tan head that lasts for a short while.

Smells roast malt, like chocolate, light char and dark fruit hints.

Taste caramel malt and roasted malt, light chocolate, light cherry. Followed by an earthy yeast and Char hint. Finishes dry with a roasted linger. Medium body and smooth lower carbonation.

 

 

 

 

Taste: slight toffee, mellow, chocolate malt, dark cherries, maybe toasted coffee beans.
Mild malt nose. Very dark Brown, semi clear, with small head with no real lace.
Medium body. Not super robust but it would still pair with many meat dishes.

 

I picked up a can of Beards Brewery's Serendipity Porter last week at Boyne Country Provisions. I'm on to the last of the beard cans that I picked up while up north, I'm interested to see what they can do with a Porter, so lets see how it goes. 2016 Vintage. Poured from a 12oz can into a imperial pint glass.

A- The can has a nice design to it, it's a little weird and it's just a little eye catching. It poured a darker brown color that took on more of a brown and mahogany color when held to the light with a half fingers worth of creamy slightly darker tan head that died down to a thin ring that eventually faded away and it left some spotty lacing behind. This is a nice looking Porter, but I wish it had a little more head and it should be a little darker.

S- The aroma starts off with a slightly higher amount of medium sweetness with a smokey aroma being the first to show up and it imparts more of a smokey aspect than I was expecting and it goes right into the malts which impart some lightly roasted, dark malt, light chocolate and grainy aromas. Up next comes the yeast which imparts a fruity and light cherry aroma that's followed by a unique pipe tobacco like aroma. The aroma is nice, but it's a little more smokey and less robust than I would like from a Porter.

T- The taste seems to be a little similar to the aroma and it starts off with a lower amount of high sweetness with the malts being the first to show up this time and they impart all the aspects that they did in the aroma, but this time they have more of a roasted and robust aspect to them and the chocolate shows up more. Up next comes that same smokey aspects that I got in the aroma, but it's much lighter this time and it's followed by the fruity yeast which shows up just about the same and it imparts that same dark cherry aspect. On the finish there's a lighter amount bitterness with some sweet malts showing up also and it had a sweet, roasted malt, chocolate and grainy aftertaste. This is a pretty nice tasting beer, the robustness that I was looking for showed up.

M- Smooth, a little sticky, slightly cloying, crisp, on the thick side of being medium bodied with a higher amount of medium carbonation. The mouthfeel is nice, but I wish the it wasn't slightly cloying.

Overall I thought this was a nice beer and nice example of the style, it threw me off a little with the aroma, but when it came to the taste everything started to come together and became better than I was thinking it might be from my first impression of the aroma. This beer has decent drinkability, I could drink one, but it's too sweet for me to drink more than that. What I like the most about this beer is the taste, it was nice and right where it should be for the style. What I like the least about this beer is the sweetness, I wish it was a little less sweet. I might buy this beer again and I don't think I would turn one down. It's not a must try, but if you don't mind your Porters on the sweeter side than this might be worth checking out. All in all I liked this beer, but I didn't love it and in the end it was the aroma and the sweetness that really held it back. IT's not my favorite Beards beer and it's just a little above average for the style. Soild job guys, but with just a little more work this could be a pretty good beer.