We Drink Craft Beers: An Adventure in Home Brewing
Follow us on our journey through home brewing and our "market research" as we drink and review lots and lots and lots of beers.
Expect Mary to post dazzling reviews with poorly lit cell phone pics and expect Cindy to post half-assed reviews with semi-pretty cell phone pics (or nice photos if she has the time and energy).
twitter.com/CindiasaurusRex:
Brewing Company: Ballast Point Brewing Company; San Diego, CA
Name: Victory at Sea: Coffee Vanilla Imperial Porter
Style: American Imperial Poter
ABV: 10.0%
Serving type: 22oz bottle
Price: $7.99
Aroma: Smelled phenomenal as soon as I opened it. Smells very strongly of vanilla and coffee with hints of chocolate & caramel.
Appearance: Pretty medium tan head, 1 finger - nice retention. Pretty, thick lacing. Dark black! No light comes through at all.
Taste: Really prominent tastes. Smooth beginning, slightly bitter hoppy finish. Very vanilla coffee! Mmm mmm mmm. Great body, nice medium carbonation. Great balance. Tingles a bit on the lips and in the throat.
Finish: Slightly bitter hoppy finish, but great vanilla aftertaste. Good buzz after just a few sips. Pleasantly buzzed after one glass. A whole bottle would have me nice and drunk.
Rating: 6/5
Highly Recommended.
<3, c.
Brew: Polygamy Porter “Why Have Just One!”
Brewer: Wasatch Brew Pub and Brewery, Park City, Utah
Style: American Porter
ABV: 4.0%
Okay.
Okay. … A Polygamy Porter?! CLEARLY I purchased a six pack of this brew within the first 7 hours of my arrival in Albuquerque.
I landed at ABQ, rented my car, started to drive toward the rental house, and promptly got distracted by a sign on the interstate for Rio Grande Nature Center. Anyway, after a 3-hour sidetrack at the park, I met up with the wedding party at a yummy restaurant in Albuquerque, had lunch and then made a trip to Sunflower Farmers Market to stock op on food for the weekend.
I, of course, promptly made my way to the back of the store to check out the local beer selection. I… LOVE travelling out west. One, because there are mountains (duh), and two, because I can get all sorts of brews (delicious, west coast brews) that I can’t find in Tampa. While browsing the beer section (in which I, thrillingly, didn’t recognize half of the brewers), I happened upon… this. This sweet, polygamous nectar, straight from the Mormon capital of the world: Salt Lake City, Utah. Which would explain, as a porter, it is only 4.0% ABV (apparently, no beer in Utah can be brewed above this percentage).
My decision was swift and certain. Why would I NOT purchase this beer?! First and foremost, it is called Polygamy Porter. Um, not short of brilliant. And secondly, IT IS BREWED IN DAMN UTAH FOR CHRISSAKE!
But really. Let’s get down to biznaz.
Upon opening this brew, I saw that it poured a nice, deep brown, that displayed a beautiful garnet shine in the middle of the beer when I held it up to the porch window and let the last rays of the desert sun penetrate the glass. And pleasingly, the beer in the corners of the pilsner glinted with a nut-brown color. I have never seen such an interesting color combination in a beer before — and in a porter, of all things!
And the head of the beer is amazing! I mean, just look at the picture. At least two inches of light, fluffy, chocolatey cotton candy. And, as I drink it, it has left a really romantic ecru lacing around the inside of my glass — reminiscent of the aerial view of the brambles of pinyon pine scattered across the dusty desert landscape that I observed as I landed in the city early this morning.
The smell is really quite delicious. Dark malts, chocolate (milk, not dark), and caramel. Standard delicious combination of smells for a porter. One review said it smelled faintly of tobacco, and upon further sniffing, I find that I agree.
As for the taste — it is, to be fair, nothing to sing about. It is a porter, certainly, but all the normal porter characteristics that you might have are simply subdued and kind of leave you wishing for a richer, deeper, more complex taste. That being said — it is not a bad beer! It is a tasty porter. Just not inspiring. There are burnt notes in the taste, and some nice caramel.
The mouthfeel is also uninspiring, sadly. Again, not bad! But a bit watery. I’d likes some chewiness or more carbonation.
The Polygamy Porter, overall, is actually a very drinkable beer. I mean, it is a 4.0% ABV brew! It’s a really light porter; the water used to make it is clearly crisp and clean. That, in combination with its low ABV, make it an excellent brew for first-time porter drinkers who need to start easy. …Really, why have just one?
Cheers! To love. All love.
xo, Mary
Brewing Company: Bell’s Brewery, Inc; Kalamazoo, Michigan
Name: Bell’s Porter
Style: American porter
ABV: 5.6%
Serving type: draught
Price: $6.25 at World of Beer
Aroma: Smells like chocolate coffee.
Appearance: Pretty, 1 finger head. Good retention. Very nice lacing. Tan color. Beer is dark brown. Very dark. Beautiful lacing!! All the way to the top of the glass!
Taste: Tastes like chocolate coffee So cold and smooth! Like velvet. Light, easy to drink. Sweet milky beginning sweet middle, very coffee finish. No taste of hops. Milky!
Finish: Medium carbonation. Little bubbles at bottom. Delicious to the last sip. May be the best porter ever.
Rating: 5/5
Highly Recommended.
I wrote these notes on my phone and just copied them over exactly as written. I had already had a drink before this one, so I was feeling buzzed and really excited, apparently. :)
<3, c.
![Brewer: Cigar City Brewing, Tampa, FL
Beer Name: José Martí American Porter
Style: Porter
ABV: 8%
Today I left work at 3:30, went to the beach, watched the most spectacular sunset on the waters of the Bay, ate dinner at La Teresita’s, and then came home to have this beer.
I have had several José Martí porters, and each time I drink one, I remember my past life as a Cuban revolutionary and fall in love with everyone in my life all over again.
I’ve been wanting to review this beer for awhile now, but I get so overly emotional when I drink it that I was scared I’d come off sounding a bit loopy when I wrote the review. So I apologize in advance for my bleeding-heart rambles.
This beer smells wonderfully of roasted malt and dark chocolate when you first pop off the cap. A scent of raisin comes through underneath all of that, and if you close your eyes and remember childhood, then you even catch a nostalgic fragrance of an earthy cedar warmed by the central Florida summer sun. Now Beer Advocate tells me that this brew is made with Pacific Northwest hops. I don’t even know what that ultimately means, but I will say this: I adore how these hops smell — their scent interplays with the chocolate and I think that if I saw them in real life, I’d like to make a wreath of them, place it in my hair, and go climb a tree.
The porter pours an enticing black with a fluffy head of foam. The foam is the color of coffee with way too much creamer in it, and it looks like something you’d eat with a spoon. It’s not a tall head, necessarily, but the foam itself is quite thick, if that makes any sense. And it dissipates nicely to a thin coating of foam that leaves a tasty alcoholic film on my lip when I drink it. Even though the beer is black at first glance, you can hold it up to the light and catch a seductive red glint the color of garnet in the corner of the pint glass. And it has lots of pretty pieces of light colored sediments floating around it, asking you to drink them. On top of all that sexiness, it leaves a really spectacular ecru lacing around the inside of your pint glass.
The first sip of this beer is really just a dark chocolate faerie dancing on your tongue with some lovely roasted malts. And I get a taste of kona coffee that I didn’t necessarily get in the smell, which makes for a decadent flavor combination. And interestingly, those flowery hops are right there on the top. But they aren’t too bitter; their unruliness is kept in check by the more mature coffee and chocolate flavors underneath, making for a really superb balance of flavors. You know that feeling you get when you smell the remains of a campfire the next morning? Cedary ashes that leave a lingering scent of what is now behind you? Somehow, Cigar City Brewery took that feeling and mixed it into the aftertaste of this porter. Which is quite appropriate.
But besides the tastes of coffee, dark chocolate, cedar, and roasted malt… this tastes like home. It tastes like every person I’ve ever known, and every idea I’ve ever had, and every poem I’ve ever read. It tastes rich, it tastes poor. It tastes like Ybor, Birmingham, Jackson Hole, and the Outback. It tastes like I want to cry whenever I drink it.
The perfect amount of carbonation leads to a sweet union of tongue and porter, making for a really lovely mouthfeel. I’d be happy to have this brew linger on my lips for as long as it takes me to sort out every flavor it has to offer me.
As for the porter’s drinkability, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who wouldn’t enjoy drinking this. However, having more than one in an evening might make you weep with longing for lives passed and lovers lost.
Photography, as always, compliments of the multi-talented and reptilian Cindiasaurus Rex.
Yo quiero salir del mundo por la puerta natural: en un carro de hojas verdes a morir me han de llevar. No me pongan en lo oscuro a morir como un traidor: yo soy bueno, y como bueno moriré de cara al sol.
I wish to leave the world By its natural door; In my tomb of green leaves They are to carry me to die. Do not put me in the dark To die like a traitor; I am good, and like a good thing I will die with my face to the sun.
-A Morir [To Die] (1894), by José Martí
xo, Mary](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxlnp6l7gE1r9k8x3o1_250.jpg)
por la puerta natural:
en un carro de hojas verdes
a morir me han de llevar.
No me pongan en lo oscuro a morir como un traidor:
yo soy bueno, y como bueno
moriré de cara al sol.
By its natural door;
In my tomb of green leaves
They are to carry me to die.
Do not put me in the dark
To die like a traitor;
I am good, and like a good thing
I will die with my face to the sun.
xo, Mary
Brewing Company: Stone Brewing Co.; Escondido, CA
Name: Smoked Porter
Style: American porter
ABV: 5.9%
Serving type: draught
Price: $6 at The Mermaid Tavern
Aroma: Dark, definitely smoked. Smells like a porter.
Appearance: Incredibly dark, almost black; no light shines through. Very gorgeous dark tan head when poured, medium retention. Very nice, substantial, lasting lacing.
Taste: The first thing I notice is how soft, smooth, and velvety the beer is. The flavor is strong, but not too strong. The taste is smoked, but the smoke taste is intentional, not like an accidental burn. It is very nicely balanced with the sweetness of the beer. The beer has a mildly sweet taste, but ends with a hint of hops.
The taste and feel is surprisingly refreshing. The body is full and seems to take up all the room in my mouth. Very filling. I probably wouldn’t have more than one unless I had a beer in between or it was over a few hours.
Finish: Slightly bitter, hoppy, small tinge of sharpness?
Rating: 5/5 Am-Zazing
Highly Recommended. A porter for IPA lovers?
I wrote this at the bar last night, after I’d already had a few and kept getting interrupted by a cute boy with beer questions. If it doesn’t make sense, blame it on the a-a-a-a-alcohol.
<3, c.
Brewing Company: Breckenridge Brewery; Denver, Colorado
Name: Vanilla Porter
Style: herb and spice beer
ABV: 4.7%
Serving type: 12oz bottle
Price: $10 for a six pack
Aroma: Deep, rich smell of malt in the most delicious way possible. I don’t pick up vanilla in the scent.
Appearance: Deep chocolate brown; dark amber highlights shine through when held up to the light. Small head with little retention. Barely any lacing.
Taste: I can’t exactly pinpoint the taste. It tastes like malt extract smells, but I can’t think of something else I’ve had that the taste is similar enough to to justify a comparison. I pick up vanilla in the taste much more than in the scent. The taste has a little bite at the beginning but becomes sweeter and finished smooth. Medium-heavy body, smooth. The carbonation creates little biting bubbles on my tongue as I swallow, and they linger for just a little bit afterward as well. The taste is most prominent on the back of the tongue, seeming the strongest mid-swallow.
Finish: Very smooth, light finish; leaves little tingling bubbles on my tongue. After taste is sweet, but doesn’t leave much flavor behind. Feelin’ a nice buzz only halfway through.
One of my favorite porters, fo sho.
Rating: 5/5
Highly Recommended.
<3, c.
January 8th:These are pictures from our first brewing day. We are making a porter called “Fat Man Porter.” Mary picked the recipe out of a book when she bought the brewing supplies. It’s a simple recipe with chocolate grains, malt extract, and two types of hops. Our friend Miles, who used to home brew a lot, came over and led us through the process.
We ended up boiling the malt longer than we were supposed to, because it never settled down from a rolling boil, and some of the volume boiled away, so we ended up with less than the five gallons the recipe is supposed to yield, getting around 3.75 or 4 gallons.
We measured the abv to be around 11% (wow!) and left the beer to sit and ferment in Mary’s laundry room in an ice bucket.
It has been 10 days and we will be bottling the beer tonight, again with the help of Miles. We are very excited. Expect more pictures soon!
Honestly, after falling in love with Highlander’s black mocha stout and thoroughly enjoying the oatmeal porter, I was unimpressed with this porter. It was not as rich or flavorful as I was expecting. It was a bit hoppy and tasted a little burnt. The head also left something to be desired.
It looked and sounded so promising. Too bad I got a six pack of this instead of the black mocha stout.
Live and learn and buy more beer.
