Dead Reckoning Porter

The Troegs Brewing Company's Dead Reckoning Porter Six pack was a pleasant surprise. I'm a man who enjoys a porter, and it's rare to find one that's really true to the style, earthy, smoky, and strong-flavored. It weighs in at about 5.7% ABV.

Served at room temperature, it has a thick and dark whitish brown head, which is much less present when served refrigerated, looking more like your typical porter and less like your typical stout at cool temperatures. Either way, the head has some of the smoky flavor in it, and really opens up the beer.




As soon as you open the bottle, the aroma hits you, and it's a delightful aroma indeed. It blossoms when poured into a glass, smelling like a porter should. It's a fine snack after a long hard day at any sort of work you might do. Its best accompaniment this week was a chili, although it does stand alone and would do well with a burger or something equally hearty.

Overall, it's a solid first entry for this project. I'd give it a B. My name is Joe.


Next up: Smuttynose Brewing Company Star Island Single.

Resolved

So this is a beer review blog, and there's not lots of beer being reviewed these days.

My goal then is to review a beer a week. Every Sunday I'll go buy a six pack of something I've never had before, and drink it over the course of the week, and post a review on the following Sunday. I encourage my fellow bloggers to do the same.

First up: Troegs Brewing Company - Dead Reckoning Porter

This is a seasonal brew which is currently out of season, but was available at my local liquor store, so I grabbed it.

Digging around in the cellar

Last night while brewing up my first tripel I decided it was time to break the seal on the last bottles of Gravitas and Agave Porter Mk. 1

Why both? Because I had forgotten which was which

So, how did these two hold up to somewhere around a year of time in the cellar?

Wow. Full stop.

The porter was glorious and had developed some more complexities. The agave came through in plum notes which played very well with the roundness and depth of the beer.

Somehow I think I either cracked my imperials too early or just didn't appreciate them enough the first time around. The Gravitas certainly didn't mind hanging out in my basement doing its own thing for close to a year. Rich mouth feel, great tan head which exploded in a world of aromatics, extremely smooth.

And here's the reaction from my brewing collaborator last night

The Porter:
What else can i say that describes it better than that I thought it was the imperial stout? complex bouquet, that nice and balanced porter roasty flavor, a surprisingly supple mouthfeel. it was like that last keg of your favorite local brew that everyone forgot about down in the cellar. suddenly it feels like christmas.

The Imperial Stout:
the imperial stout was quite simply an excellent representative of the species. floral to peaty bouqet, luscious mouthfeel, and incredibly developed flavors ranging from overripe stonefruit to french roast beans to mildly earthy grains. fruity, yet meaty. and yes... somehow that is correct...

I still have a blond and an apricot in the basement. I'm not sure when next I'll crack open an old favorite, but if these two were any indication, the next two should be something special.

It's been awhile

We're big slackers. On posting, not brewing.

A brief summary of today for the multitudes not in attendance: The porter is more porter-like this time. We attribute that to fresher ingredients than last time. Half of it is kegged for our next brewing session, half is bottled, a quarter of which is reserved for contest entries. We determined that the beer is pretty spot-on for style 12A - Brown Porter, per the BJCP guidelines.

We put together a holiday spice ale from a kit I had and deferred the spring herb beer to next time. We also discussed maple syrup beer, more mead, and more porter. Wii bowled.

That is all.