Sunset Coconut Porter
Covered Bridge Brewhaus

Pours a dark as night black color with a one-finger large head.

Smells is full of a funky, fruity, and coconut flavor. A (or rather the) previous review mentioned hasslenuts, which did not come to mind immediately but feels spot on.

This is weird, but good weird. It's very light, almost like a black and tan - but has a satisfying sweetness that makes it highly drinkable. In many cases I feel like the black & tan style occupies a weird inbetween of non-drinkability and simplicity. This transcends that (while not being a B&T) by being highly drinkable and light, and with a satisfying sweet aftertaste. I'll come back to this.

 

This is a tasty brew.

This beer was served on tap at The Tavern of the Pine Barn Inn in Danville, Pennsylvania. It arrived in a generic pint glass, showing a shimmering Tootsie Roll coloring. A quarter finger’s worth of copper foam headed the beer, leaving ringed ridges of lacing following a short retention. Thick haze reduced clarity, but no sediment was found. Carbonation appeared to be moderate. The aroma included notes of green plantains, cooling banana esters, chalky cacao powder, fresh walnuts and hazelnuts, milk and dark chocolate, printer ink, toasty black and chocolate malts, molasses metallics, cream cheese frosting, silky oat, and rye. A mild shaved coconut quality came out, but only after it took time to warm itself up. The flavoring, on the other hand, smacks you with big fresh coconut from the start. This is oily, fresh, smoky, organic, and smooth. Additional notes included smooth milk chocolate sugars, vanilla malted milkshake, soured heavy creamer, fatty sour cream, roasted but light chocolate and coffee malts, coiny metallics, chalked yeast, dusty cloth, buttercream, angel's food cake, sharp vanilla extract, and distant lime rind twinge. The body was medium, but oily, while carbonation came across as higher and higher the long it was held in the mouth. Thin slurp and smack topped each sip, while a bigger creaminess and frothiness sat tightly beneath the teeth. The mouth was left wetted, but subsequently warmed and dried with a brushing chalkiness. The abv was appropriate, and the beer drank easily.

Overall, this was a nicely unique and well-executed beer for what was advertised. Although there was little aromatic coconut for most of the tasting (it was more of just a metallic wash before it warmed out of the beer), it came out in numbers through the flavoring. The experience was warming, creamy, and sweetening all at once. It was actually quite a nice effect. Aside from this additive ingredient, we found a base flavor that was rather thinned and washed, but again, not broken up enough to let the star coconut fall through the cracks. Had we not gotten to the inn so close to last call, after an intense drive through the snowy hills of Pennsylvania, we would have gotten a second glass. Man did it hit the spot.