You may also be wondering how a Baltic Porter differs from a regular Porter. To help you out just visit our esteemed beer colleagues at All About Beer for their great write-up on Baltic Porters. In short, the story is a bit like that of the IPA – it has to do with shipping and these porters of over 200 years ago were stronger and more robust than standard porters and could be shipped across the Baltic and North Seas, hence a Baltic Porter. It actually shares quite a bit in common with an Imperial Stout.

For this review we poured our 12 oz, 9% ABV Baltic Porter into a tulip glass and got an initial beer temperature of 52.5 F. The pour produced a small 3/4″ frothy medium to dark brown head that dissipated quickly and left virtually no lacing. There was little carbonation to speak of and the body was an opaque black.

The aromas were dark chocolate, espresso, molasses, roasted malts, earth, alcohol, black licorice, dark cherry, pepper, smoke and soy sauce. It’s a nice grouping of smells that really works nicely together. The great smoke smell gets stronger as it warms. I had this beer in the home office with the door closed during the review and when my wife walked in she noted the potent smell – this sucker is strong.

The taste has a great sweet edge to it that is unbelievably smooth. We were able to taste all the malt aromas – dark chocolate, espresso, molasses and roasted malts (that are almost burnt). We also tasted some of the the other aromas – alcohol, black licorice, smoke and soy sauce and also got one note we didn’t get in the smell – plum. The dark fruits start to come out a bit more in the taste as it warms up. The initial flavor notes came in as a moderate to heavy sweet and the finish flavor evolves to a heavy sweet, moderate bitter and light saltiness. There’s no body lacing to speak of, surprising considering the mouthfeel is somewhat syrupy.

One of the best parts of this beer is the finish. This is the longest aftertaste of any beer we’ve had – it’s very long and hangs around forever. And drinking water lessens it, but doesn’t make it go away completely. The initial malts slide with the aftertaste towards a little bit of hoppiness that results in a pretty well balanced beer. On our patented malt to hop scale (patent number 15,824,193.5) , it comes in at a derived 4 – just a bit on the malty side of balanced. The initial notes comes in at a 3 and the finish comes in right at a 5, perfectly balanced, so we gave it the composite score of 4. This is one beer where you really feel the slide from initial taste to finish.

For our bottom line notes – it’s highly drinkable, balanced, has a beautiful harmony to it, is memorable, has a wow factor and we’d love to buy it again. The only thing we marked no for is repeatability and that is because though we would gladly drink another one, it would almost be a waste of such a fine beer as your palate couldn’t fully appreciate it as much on the second go. Save it for when it can be your first beer of the day and you can fully enjoy it for it’s great complexity and smoothness.

The bottle says that it’s “Proudly hand made in small batches” and this approach to brewing really shows in a top quality end product. Compared to one of our other favorites – the Foothills Sexual Chocolate – the Duck Rabbit has more coffee notes, less chocolate notes and more smokiness. Remember we mentioned that the Baltic Porters share a lot in common with the Imperial Stouts? Well the Foothills Sexual Chocolate is an Imperial Stout, also made here in North Carolina.

The only real down side to the Duck Rabbit Baltic Porter is availability – which tends to occur in the fall in a relatively small regional area. It is a world class example of not only a Baltic Porter, but the entire porter class. This one should be purchased any time it is found. I got this at Brawley’s Beverage here in Charlotte and at the time he was limiting purchases to one six pack per customer. Don a Groucho Marx mask if you need to and trust me when I say get as many as you can.

Son Beer Love Review (March 12, 2008):

For what it’s worth the Foothills Sexual Chocolate is currently ranked as the #26 best beer in the world at RateBeer.com. That being said, you can imagine my glee when I found that our local Flying Saucer Draught Emporium had this sucker on tap. On tap. Again: on tap. In our findings getting a beer on tap will usually be enough to add a point to the overall rating. Think of Guinness from the can. Now think of Guinness on tap. You see my point. In my experience it can be tough to find a lot of the top beers on tap. The current number one beer in the world (Three Floyds Oak Aged Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout) is only served one day a year at the DarkLord Days at 3F Brewery. A lot can be said for supply and demand.

So I got my friend Ray to head over with me after work one night to have a glass or two and enjoy the, ahem, scenery (this bar is smack in the middle of the university area of Charlotte where lots of young twenty-something college students come to hang out). We got there, sat down and ordered up two on draft, though the waitress informed us that the $2.75 everything on draft special did not apply to the Sexual Chocolate. It should be noted here that having your waitress who is wearing an awfully short mini skirt and knee stockings utter the words “Sexual Chocolate” to you is worth whatever price difference you may have to endure (in this case $2.00 as we paid $4.75 for each glass). Also worth noting is that Sexual Chocolate is perhaps the best beer name in the entire world (it’s tough to say without thinking back to Coming to America and screaming it just like Eddie Murphy does – “Sexual Chocolate! Sexual Chocolate!”). A possible contender for best beer name would be the Flying Dog Doggie Style (Pale Ale). But I think Sexual Chocolate would be the hands down winner, if not just for the boldness of the beer.

Back on track – the Foothills Sexual Chocolate is an Imperial Stout, indicating a healthy amount of gravity (in this case 9.75%) and strong malt flavors. It’s brewed by Foothills Brewing over in Winston-Salem, NC and it’s a relatively new brewing company – established in 2004. This was on draft and was served up in a tulip glass. The head was fairly small (1/2″) but that may be due to a lack of knowledge on the server’s part – I feel like a good pour would have had a really decent head on it. The head was dark brown and creamy and laced fairly well on the glass, though it dissipated rather quickly. The color was opaque and seemed to be squarely black though the lighting wasn’t the best in there. There was little to no carbonation to speak of (in looking for bubbles to come up through the head).

The aromas were strong – dark chocolate, espresso, roasted malts and molasses. The initial flavor was a heavy sweet – the dark chocolate absolutely stands out in the taste and it’s wonderfully rich and velvety smooth. The taste echoes most of the aromas, but adds notes of earth and smoke to the mix. Very interestingly, there was no alcohol in the taste at all. There is a bit of a write-up at the Flying Saucer web site that details how it’s made:

…Sexual Chocolate is made with a no sparge technique, taking only the first runnings from the mash. This is completely undiluted wort. Made with black malt and roasted barley and chocolate in close equal proportions. 8 lbs of organic Peruvian cocoa nibs were infused with the imperial stout for about two weeks, accomplishing a cold alcohol extraction of the cocoa flavor.

The finish flavor is heavy sweet and lightly bitter with a long duration. The mouthfeel is creamy and the beer laces really well in the glass. On the malt to hop scale it dominates the malt side – most of the aromas and tastes are byproducts of the malts (dark chocolate, espresso, molasses and roasted flavors). I was surprised to find that it had an IBU of 85 – with the dominant malts whatever bitterness there is doesn’t come through much (it’s only slightly detectable in the finish).

Problem: It’s so smooth I can’t stop drinking it. It’s like chocolate milk for adults. Though I would say it only has an average complexity it is deceptively drinkable and a fantastic treat. Despite the obvious malt edge it balances pretty well. I’ve had chocolate stouts before and usually by the end of the glass they get pretty annoying. Not this bad boy – I had to cut myself off after the second glass and actually considered it when she asked if I wanted another. The fact that it was repeatable is what surprised me. The drinkability is there in droves, it was highly memorable and the wow factor was off the charts. I’d absolutely buy it again.

Ray asked if my rating (9 out of 10) had anything to do with the RateBeer rating. I gave it some thought but realized it would have emerged with the same rating regardless. The drinkability, uniqueness and harmony just add up to an almost perfect beer. There are very few high gravity beers I’d want more than one of in a sitting but this one hits that mark. Drink a few at home and put a bunch of pillows on the ground for when you pass out. Sexual Chocolate!

Father Beer Love Review (April 29, 2008):

The Beer Fairy came to my house and left me a bottle of this fine stout. I must be very, very good or very pitiful. I have read comments online saying what’s the big deal with the excitement about this stout? Let me say that I live in a vast Stout wasteland, 3 kinds of Guinness, Sierra Nevada, Mackeson and Beamish that’s being sold for half price because it is really old.

On the day I opened this I promised the Beer Fairy I would share this with the Lovely Mrs. Beer Love so I let it counter rest to a perfect 54.3F -12.1C temp. and poured two tulip glasses. The initial pour gave me a 1.5 inch creamy dark brown head that dissipated slowly and had virtually no head lacing. The color was opaque black and had little carbonation. Aromas were coffee, dark chocolate, espresso, molasses, perfume, earth, alcohol, black licorice, brown sugar and smoke. Taste were mostly the same but included dark dried fruits which reminded me of strong Belgium ale. Initial flavors were moderate sweet, light bitter and light saltiness. Finish flavors were heavy sweet, moderate bitter, light salty and light tart. The finish was long, mouthfeel was creamy and had virtually no body lacing. On the malt to hop scale I put it just to the malt side of balanced [4].

I found this incredibly complex, the taste in drinking were espresso and chocolate first later comes the anise taste. The malts just seem to last and last in the finish. It’s hard to believe the IBU is as high as it is. The taste stays on the back of the tongue for a long time. In the aroma the espresso comes through heavier than the chocolate but in the sipping the chocolate marches to the front. Wow! I had to limit myself to one glass the first time as it got hard to write well enough to read. I actually finished this over a period of 4 sittings. On the second sitting I tried it right out of the ice box to see if the cold changed the profile, chocolate and anise were stronger and almost no coffee aromas, taste were anise and molasses undertones. As it warmed to 54F the profiles went back where they were on first tasting. After the last was gone I thought about having my tongue bronzed.

I know your next question, why does it take you 4 sittings over 8 to 9 days to drink a 22 oz. bottle of beer? The answer is a story I heard a long time ago. Traveling salesman and a farmer sat down to dinner with the farmers family, in walked a pig wearing 2 gold medals and walking on 2 wooden legs to his own place at the table. The salesman asked the farmer about the pig. The farmer said that the 2 gold medals were for saving 2 of his children, one from a burning barn, the other from an icy pond – that’s why he eats with us. The salesman asked about the wooden legs. The farmer said “a pig that special you don’t eat all at once.”

Son Beer Love Review (March 2, 2007):

The Trappistes Rochefort 10 was a beer I was eagerly looking forward to trying. When I bought it I told Mike Brawley I was looking to try one trappist ale and asked for his recommendation. He pointed me past the others to this one. Great directive – this beer was an absolute treat.

I did a some research on trappist beers – of the 171 or so Trappist monasteries, only 7 produce beer. I think Chimay, Orval and Westmalle are some of the other noted monasteries – at least ones I’ve heard of. The Rochefort 10 is made at the Rochefort Brewery – Brasserie de Rochefort – located inside the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy. They make 3 trappist beers – the Rochefort 6, 8 and 10. Talk about a niche. There are 15 monks resident at the monastery, which has been brewing off and on since 1595. It is said the beer is only sold to financially support the monastery and other good causes. That’s a cause I can get behind. At $5.99 a bottle at Brawley’s it should be a worthwhile cause.

The Rochefort 10 is classified as a quadruple ale. At 11.3% ABV, the classification is fitting. This bad boy will knock you down (more on that later). The pour is terrific (using a tulip glass). The color is dark and rich – a dark brown/red color that is quite cloudy – it looks black until you hold it up to the light. The head is a magnificent tan that lasts quite a long time. The smell is intoxicating – roasted malts, chocolate and alcohol. Though you can smell the alcohol, it doesn’t seem to interfere with the taste much. The taste – terrific – malty sweet – chocolate and dried fruit flavors – apricot, prunes and dates is what I pick up, as well as a hint of spice. It feels thick and creamy in the mouth and coats the tongue well. It’s definitely a sipping beer and I took my time with it. It’s got a good bit of carbonation – I burped a lot. I read the monks will use a Belgian candy sugar in the fermentation process, which helps pack in more alcohol. You really don’t taste the alcohol much, but you feel it. Very warming. Afterwards I felt very ready for bed.

I’m writing this review the next day after trying the Rochefort 10. Vivid dreams last night and a tough little headache this morning. I didn’t drink much water yesterday and I think that had a little something to do with it. I should have remembered my lesson from Oktoberfest – one liter of beer to one liter of water means no headache in the morning. Though this is only an 11.2 ounce bottle, with the higher ABV you may need to treat it more like a liter. Man those trappist monks can make some brew!

Side note: I am actively using my new book, Beer: A Guide to Choosing it, Drinking it, Brewing it, and Loving it for the Connoisseur and Wannabe Alike, by Eve Adamson and have adapted my drinking style a bit based on her recommendations. I think I have been trying my beers too cold – starting with this one I’m now pulling them out of the fridge for about 20 minutes so they can warm up before I try them at her recommended beer tasting temperature of around 50 degrees. If this one is any indication it does enhance the taste a good bit.

Father Beer Love Review (March 9, 2007):

This is a trappist Belgian ale. 11.3% ABV 11.2 oz @ $5.99 per bottle. Cool spring evening 52 degrees. Beer temp. 47 degrees after a 20 min. wait out of the icebox. Drank 20 oz. of cool water to slake thirst.

It pours very dark brown with a light brown head. Sweet aroma of raisins, plums and caramel. First taste gives me sweetness, caramel and chocolate. Reminds me of 50% cacao Godiva chocolate I bought in Munich for my wife. Later I catch a little coffee taste. The mouth feel is unbelievable. This must be what a fine dessert wine is like. Flavor coats my entire mouth, front back, top and bottom. The hops aren’t bitter enough to overpower the rich depth of the exquisite malts. I have an aversion to too sweet beers but this is something totally different. Think of this as dessert in a glass. This should be sipped slowly and savored until the taste fades away slowly which takes quite a while. I find I’m swirling and sniffing twice as much as sipping to savor it even more.

Last review I shot my mouth off about how I didn’t think a 10 was possible. I’m going to stick with that as I don’t like to be proven wrong in just a week. I had a hard time reading my writing at the end so it hits really hard.

At $5.99 per, this isn’t an everyday beer unless you’re very wealthy. THIS IS A SPECIAL OCCASION ALE, well worth the price. Anybody inviting me to have one would be a special occasion!