Smouldering Smoked Porter
Moody Ales

650ml bottle - 'pairs well with the fireplace'. Sigh, I'll just have to make do with a hearty furnace and a twinkling blue spruce Christmas tree, I guess.

This beer pours a fairly solid black, with basic red cola basal edges, and four fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat creamy beige head, which leaves a bit of limestone arch lace around the glass as it quickly dissolves.

It smells of roasted caramel malt, BBQ pork, smokey peat, bittersweet cocoa powder, charred black coffee, a touch of bewildered yeastiness, ephemeral dark orchard fruit, and some very plain earthy, leafy, and dead floral green hop bitters. The taste is toasty caramel malt, a prominent smouldering (yeah) porcine meatiness, lush dark chocolate, cafe-au-lait, some gentle oily nuttiness, and an understated leafy, herbal, and grassy hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly timid in its tamped-down frothiness, the body a solid medium weight, and generally smooth, with a nice airy creaminess batting away the potentially interfering ashy notes. It finishes off-dry, the meaty smoke putting on the brakes for a spell, and allowing the caramel, cocoa, and creamed coffee some free time out in the stockyard.

Overall, this is one heady smoked Porter, one that approaches the goodness of yer Alaskan or Bamberg (if they actually made one) versions. Nice and campfire-adjacent, with a robust smoky character that is duly offset by caramel, cocoa, and fruit alike. Very worthy of checking out, especially if this is your sort of thing.

 

 

The smokiness is intriguing, but it is a little too intense for my taste.

 

 

Smouldering Smoked Porter - 6.9% 19 IBU - pours a rich brown with a tan head that sticks around for a awhile and eventually forming islands on the surface. Strong smoke nose, roasted malts. Taste is much the same with the smoke masking a lot of the other flavours. There is a bit of mocha ness in the finish. Mildly carbonated.