This is only my second brew from
Breckenridge, but the
first one was very good. Like this one, it was a dark version of an
ale, and as I don't bother to do much background work on most of these reviews, I assume that this is the only kind of beer that they put out: dark and spiced. The first one I had was a gift from my brother, but I gave this one to myself as a very, very late Christmas present.
Predictably, the beer is very dark; however, it is not implacable like many of the
porters or
stouts that I've had before might be. Instead, light goes directly through the middle of the beer if you hold it up to diffuse background lighting. The color that it produces is a delightful mahogany red, and the off-white bubbles don't stick around for very long. What remains reminds me more of a beer that has been
barrel aged than one that has simply had vanilla added. The aroma is intoxicating. The vanilla is very intermingled with the roasted oats of the malt, and the effect is to make this feel like a beer that has a much higher alcohol content than the
5.4% that the bottle displays.
First sip is very good. The front end seems to be a little aggressive, but everything seems to even out over the course of the sip. The malt is very roasted, but it also brings us sweetness that the vanilla highlights very nicely. The smokiness of the toasted malt definitely lingers for a while after the beer is gone, but it is not unwelcome. As a sipping beer, this would be pretty good.
Tip-in is very smoky and charred malt with the carbonation adding the feeling that this is what's left as the burning embers die away in the campfire. The middle presses on with an unpredictably smooth mixture that features the malt that is no longer burned like it was in the beginning, but it is toasted well and has vanilla and dark fruits mixed with a little bit of earth. The middle is where the sweetness rises with the vanilla highlighting it to cover up any mistakes that the beer might have made before the beer leaves a smoky trail off.
Bottom Line: A solid and delightful Porter.
4.0/5
