Portucale
Mean Sardine Brewery

 

a for real imperial stout here, brewed with figs and aged in port wine barrels, my first beer from these guys and an ambitious and enormous offering. i really dug it. the beer is slick and black and dense, almost chewy in the mouth, heavy as can be and a bit sweet, about as dark as dark can be on the grain side of things, bitter and almost like an exploded marker, a little chemical and a little fusel and really intense. there is some cool molasses richness to it though, well layered in complexity, but i think the figs are kind of lost to the enormity of it all, although there is a dried concentrated fruity thing, like raisin, which must be the figs in here, just not as robust as i thought they might be, but the beer almost has the texture of a fig, no joke. the port wine is big in here and i get all sorts of cool things out of it like walnuts and black cherries and burnt sugar, its killer, not overly woody, but the port itself comes through a whole lot. this is winter beer, thick and dense and slow, complex, and warming up really well. i am surprised it doesnt have better ratings here, i think its wonderfully unique and pretty well executed too if you dont mind the fig part being subtle. fun stuff, i hope to encounter more from these guys!