Monk's Habit Robust Porter
Troubled Monk Brewery

 

 

1L howler from Sherbrooke Liquor store's increasingly bad-ass growler station. Once again, nice to try this Red Deer craft brewery's offerings without having to, y'know, actually go there. And what's the deal (imagine 90's era Jerry Seinfeld's voice right now) with this 'robust porter' designation?

This beer pours a clear, very dark mahogany-tinted brown colour, with two zaftig fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and mildly creamy beige head, which leaves some random splattered snow rime lace around the glass as it quickly blows off into the ether.

It smells of mildly roasted caramel malt, a further generic graininess, muddled cafe-au-lait, Zellers-esque biscuity chocolate wafers, a touch of downmarket black orchard fruit, and plain earthy, leafy, and weedy hop bitters. The taste is heady and bready, slightly doughy, and faintly toasty pale malt, some additional throttled biscuity sweetness, chalky stale powdered cocoa, ethereal dry coffee notes, and more underwhelming weedy, earthy, and gently floral noble hoppiness.

The carbonation is very timid in its here right now, but gone in the blink of an eye frothiness, the body a so-so medium weight, and more or less smooth, the presumed interlopers generally of the ephemeral sort. It finishes trending dry, as the cocoa and coffee notes start to consider an ill-advised resurgence, and the so-far understated hops maintain their respectable between the ditches stand.

Overall, I don't know what particular monk gives a flying youknowwhut about porters, much less so-called 'robust' ones, but this is one of the weaker offerings from that cadre of new Alberta craft breweries making waves right now. Nothing particularly wrong here, but, to use one of my old tropes - if I were to ever don a skirt (do kilts count?), this would not exactly blow it up.

Another seasonal offering from Troubled Monk, and this is definitely one of my favorites. It is definitely robust, with the requisite roasted malt, coffee, and dark chocolate notes I expect and enjoy in this style of beer. The hop notes are muted, which allow the rich flavour to dominate. Keep up the good work!