O’Fallon Smoked Porter

By on April 8, 2008 @ 6 PM (No Comments)

The latest Thursday night Father and Son Beer Love Session features the O’Fallon Smoked Porter. The smoked porter concept was new to us so we were pretty anxious to give it a shot. We like smoked and we like porters, so let’s blend the two and dive in.

The O’Fallon Brewery is conveniently located in O’Fallon, Missouri, and I’m sure the crew there was pleased with the happenstance of the name/location. This Smoked Porter weighs in at 6% ABV in it’s 12 oz bottle, which also tells us it was the 2004 Gold Medal winner for the best smoked beer in America. To celebrate we served it up in an American pint glass and had an initial pour temperature of 47 F. Perfect!

The pour produced a small 3/4″ frothy medium brown head and an opaque black body. The head dissipated rather quickly and left a fair amount of lacing in the process. Not much carbonation to speak of. Our initial aromas, using our patented BeerFathers sniffing process, gave us roasted malts, black licorice, soy sauce and smoke. We rated the smoke smell as very comparable to liquid smoke that you use to marinade your meats when you can’t actually smoke them outdoors.

Our initial flavor was a moderate bitter, followed by a lightly salty aftertaste. Very interesting. The soy sauce taste is high predominant and the smoke flavor follows thereafter. It’s not terribly complex and we were a little surprised there was no coffee or chocolate notes at all to it – being smoked porter newbies we’re not sure if that’s the style or just the style of this one in particular. The finish had an average to long duration and produced an odd saltiness we really haven’t experienced much before in other beers. The mouthfeel was dry and on the malt to hop scale it was closer to the heavy side of malts.

It’s definitely worth trying one – it may suit you or someone you love’s tastes very well. It definitely won’t appeal to the masses and didn’t really appeal to us. Try it for its uniqueness though – this thing makes its own statement and we respect that. Plus one point in the rating for it’s boldness, brazenness, brashness and bravado. This may work with a hearty meal – think briskets and stews. The heavy bold flavors might jive a bit there. Hell, it may be worth a shot to marinade your steaks right in this. Now that we can get into!

O’Fallon Smoked Porter Rating: 4 out of 10 (?)


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