brew

The porter tastes like porter

Two porters in a row – or a demonstration of lazy blogging with half written posts piling up in the queue. This one started with 9.25 pounds of pale two row and had a medley of minor additions: 1.25 pounds of Munich, 13 ounces of Caramel 40, 10 ounces of chocolate, and 6 ounces of black malt. This wound up overshooting the predicted mark by about ten pounds. 1.076 is more an extra robust porter. The first 1.70 ounces of hops were Goldings at the beginning of the sixty minute boil, the second was 0.75 ounces of Fuggles at fifteen minutes, and finally 0.70 more Goldings at the last second. Fermentation was with subtle, reliable WLP001.

The robust porter is a nice dark black with a tan topper. The aroma doesn’t give away much beyond a subtle sweetness. The flavor, however, very much lives up to the name. After an initial punch of sugar it’s all roasty bitterness with bits of smokiness and coffee. The combination very much strikes me as robust. The sweetness up front is a little too much and it could stand to be drier but it’s still a very drinkable beer. The body is medium maybe even shading to medium-light – nowhere near what I would call heavy. The relative lightness seems like a nice demarcation from the world of stouts.