Rare Earth
Annex Ale Project

I enjoyed the Milk Chocolate Stout from the small batch series so thought I'd try this one out now after seeing in the store!

A- Pours a medium colored brown, and overall it seems that it would be rather clear if it were not for the pigment...it is easy to see light from the underside of the top....the head is about two fingers in thickness, is caramel in color and retains quite well, settling into a thick layer of creamy foamy puff. The lacing shows a lot of promise at first, with an entire coating of foamy bubbles attempting to cling to the inside of the glass, before gravity sucks nearly all of it back into its clenches.

S- The aromas are leaning towards the muted side of things....I detect soft white chocolate creme, blended into the more familiar burnt cocoa and French press coffee nuances. Vanilla wafer, whipping cream and biscuity yeast tones help round things out, and the finish is of dry grassy/grainy and mild hop bitterness.

T- There was something I needed to figure out what I was tasting before typing this area out, and that is the flavor of campfire smoke....it isn't overpowering by any means, but adds a certain richness to the overall flavor being found here. Dark chocolate, burnt almond nuttiness, milky coffee, heavily toasted malts, a burnt brown sugar/blackstrap molasses sweetness and a finish that is dry and of slightly bittering hop cones.

M/O- Surprisingly thin for a porter, but lies somewhere in between thin and medium bodied. The carbonation is expected, and embraced by myself, a creamy velvet fizz that smooths the overall flavor profile in a gentle coating over the palate. The alcohol is hidden well and the drinkability factor is good, being a nice sipping Porter that I could see going well with a crumbly cheddar or with a chocolate dessert. Worth trying out and another nice AB production!

650ml bottle - not much info out there on the Interwebs about this offering. Guess it's up to me.

This beer pours a clear, dark orange-brick brown colour, with three fingers of puffy, loosely foamy, and somewhat fizzy beige head, which leaves some random streaky lace around the glass as it slowly yet surely subsides.

It smells of roasted caramel malt, cafe-au-lait, medium cocoa powder, some earthy nuttiness, and very tame leafy, herbal, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is gritty and grainy cereal malt, some free-range ashiness, oily bar-top nuts, day-old coffee grounds, and more well-understated earthy, musty, and dead floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly laid-back in its palate-assuring frothiness, the body a so-so middleweight, and mostly smooth, but for a touch of char getting all fresh with my better sensibilities. It finishes off-dry, but not by much, as the subtle smokiness steers the conversation in that direction.

Overall - I sort of had to guess as to which type of Porter that this is intended to be, and I don't think that I'm going to change my initial assessment. That said, Rare Earth is indeed a Porter, and a rather flavourful one at that. Worth checking out, until, if it's anything like how they do NE-style IPAs, there will be a new version in a month.