The season is plodding along, and we’re deep into the time when we should expect snow and freezing temperatures, even here in Albuquerque.That usually brings the dark beers out of the barrels, as everyone knows, and into goblets and chalices and glassware designed to let something warm up and get tasty. It’s all part of the tradition of beer, or at least the modern traditions of our consumer-oriented beer industry. We’re all in the crosshairs of some very desperate folks these days, and they’ll manufacture a holiday in a heartbeat if it means they can claim another fraction of a percentage point of profit.
I am, admittedly, in a different group of consumers – in my 40’s without kids or pets, and not interested in the usual sort of domestic goods the average American is interested in. I see booze-themed holidays on a regular basis because I go to drinking places. Cinco De Mayo, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), even valentine’s day, they all serve the industry bottom line, boosted by advertising and signage geared at a fluid crowd of drinkers. Mainstream businesses like Chili’s and Applebees promote drink specials around holiday themes – they never stop – and there’s always some sort of sporting event to build displays of domestic beer around at the grocery store.
Enter Siberian Silk from La Cumbre, a monster ‘Baltic Porter’ clocking in at 10.1%, available for a short time yet on tap and in cans from the taproom. I use quotation marks because most porters come in around 6%, from my experience. There are often stronger porters out there, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one listed at this ABV without other descriptors (imperial, barrel-aged). Indeed, another porter I’ve enjoyed recently from Santa Fe Brewing was their State Pen Porter, which is like 6.5% ABV. They’re barely comparable on flavor profiles, with only the faintest similarities in the finish, but they’re still the same general beer – dark, roasty malts, the slightest sweetness leading into a dryer, bitter finish, leaning heavily on the malt character all the way through. The result is something that fits in with colder weather drinking nicely, something that’s got some body to it, much like it’s close cousin, the stout.
Most decent brewers will try their hand at a porter at some point, usually after they’ve got some lagering under their belt, since it’s a measure of patience to get the right balance on these beers. You don’t really have any hops to cover deficiencies in the malt bill, and the dryer finish on most porters won’t do any work to hide mistakes. I had several other examples in mind when I started writing this piece, now lost to time…I was thinking of Flock of Moons here in Albuquerque, I’m sure, since they excel at these kind of measured beers. You’d struggle to find anything on a national scale resembling it, except Guiness, which isn’t a porter. So they say.
Is it a Porter? Is it a Stout?
If you’re just looking for a beer to drink that you like, the only way you’ll know is by trying it, ignoring the usual label bullshit. There is some crossover in flavor profiles between various types of porter and dry stouts, and stouts that resemble porters, and I’m not the best person to describe the styles – see Jeff Alworth’s excellent beervana blogverse for that. There are differences in the yeast used, but the beers can be treated very similarly after that, with barrel aging and other treatments common.
In the end, though, they’re dark and roasty beers, typically with a hefty body that many people prefer on a cold, drafty night in the middle of winter while sitting by a fire. I was at Boxing Bear Brewing recently and tried both of the porters and both of their stouts and I’d have been thrown off by the ABV but not the flavors – The Russian Imperial Stout was just a massive beer at 11.8%, I think, and the Milk Stout carried a noticable semi-sweetness that the porters didn’t hold. As a casual drinker, the porters were more complex overall, with the stouts delivering a more direct hit of satisfaction. YMMV.
The practical application of my thinking is that you should just try the beers before writing them off by how they’re labeled. I’m sure we all knew that before my rambling, but it’s hard to articulate for some people. I have a friend that really enjoys beer, but hadn’t ever had a Belgian dubbel or trippel, as far as he was aware, until recently. He wouldn’t have tried them, based off the name, if I hadn’t explicitly suggested he should, and then his mind was blown by the new flavors. He enjoys his dark and heady stouts so I wasn’t surprised about the crossover enjoyment. Those monks knew a thing or two about brewing a strong-ass ale. Makes me thirsty just thinking about it.
More the merrier!
I recently posted a little something about starting a social club to explore your local breweries, forgetting for a second that some people and places don’t have the 45+ supposed operating breweries in the Albuquerque area I enjoy. There may be just a handful of options for some people, and I hadn’t really considered how it might work for a lot of people around the country. I try not to take my beer privilege for granted, but there I am, practically bragging about my choices. That said, there’s usually some sort of booze-based social gathering you can dream up with just a handful of fellow participants. Trust me, others will follow when they see how much fun you’re having. My little group has grown steadily throughout the last year, and when we’re all at the table with a pint, it’s really great thing for those of us who might be otherwise starved of attention.