Brewed By: O'Fallon Brewery in O'Fallon, Missouri
Purchased: Single bottle [from Friar Tucks, Urbana, IL?]; given to me by my girlfriend, 2011
Style/ABV: Smoked, 6.0%
It sucks to be pork. Pigs are smarter than dogs, but they aren't cute and cuddly. And they don't taste like bacon. I'll be the first to say it: if our most valued intellectuals tasted like bacon, then dammit, we would eat them before they could get us to the moon or cure cancer. What I am trying to say here is that even if your pet pig invents the cure for cancer or solves the energy crisis...bacon! The movie Babe is obviously a fictitious piece, because in real life that pig would have been bacon within the first five minutes.
I do love bacon, and when I hit 60 and let it all go I will probably eat a pound of bacon every day. My girlfriend knows I love bacon, and saw something on TV about beer that tastes like bacon. Which brings us to today's beer: O'Fallon's Smoked Porter. The brewery website has some info on the beer. Specifically, it is a beer brewed using Bamberg Smoked Malt grain as well as Chinook and German Hallertau Mittlefruh hops. At 24 IBUs I expect a balanced, smokey beer with notes of bacon. Mmm...bacon.
Unlike the Downtown Brown which was deceptively darker in my crappy picture, this beer is actually black in appearance, or approaching it. It isn't jet black or "motor oil," and shades of brown do escape the edges when held to light. Aggressive pour aside, the 2-finger tan/brown head recedes into a nice one-centimeter coating. There is good carbonation visible on the outer edges of my glass, but the soul of this beer is dark...just like my bacon clogged arteries. Right away I smell meaty smoke and lots of chocolate. I don't smell any specific "bacon" notes, just a hint of smoked meaty-ness, and more chocolate.
Ah, but what you don't get in the nose you do get in the aftertaste. Lots of smoked beef jerky, smoked ham, and yes, BACON, creep up in the back end of this beer. The front is actually kind of malty and hoppy with a nice wash of caramel and even some wheat. Chocolate and smoke dominate the middle but also show up in the overall presentation.
But make no mistake, this has a "meaty" back end. This actually has a complex profile, but I can see where someone would get bacon from. I get some Guinness Draught type smoke, and some Guinness type smoothness. If Guinness was stronger and infused with chocolate and meat, you could compare it to this beer.
It sucks to be pork. Pigs are smarter than dogs, but they aren't cute and cuddly. And they don't taste like bacon. I'll be the first to say it: if our most valued intellectuals tasted like bacon, then dammit, we would eat them before they could get us to the moon or cure cancer. What I am trying to say here is that even if your pet pig invents the cure for cancer or solves the energy crisis...bacon! The movie Babe is obviously a fictitious piece, because in real life that pig would have been bacon within the first five minutes.
 |
| ...and on the 8th day, bacon! |
Unlike the Downtown Brown which was deceptively darker in my crappy picture, this beer is actually black in appearance, or approaching it. It isn't jet black or "motor oil," and shades of brown do escape the edges when held to light. Aggressive pour aside, the 2-finger tan/brown head recedes into a nice one-centimeter coating. There is good carbonation visible on the outer edges of my glass, but the soul of this beer is dark...just like my bacon clogged arteries. Right away I smell meaty smoke and lots of chocolate. I don't smell any specific "bacon" notes, just a hint of smoked meaty-ness, and more chocolate.
Ah, but what you don't get in the nose you do get in the aftertaste. Lots of smoked beef jerky, smoked ham, and yes, BACON, creep up in the back end of this beer. The front is actually kind of malty and hoppy with a nice wash of caramel and even some wheat. Chocolate and smoke dominate the middle but also show up in the overall presentation.
But make no mistake, this has a "meaty" back end. This actually has a complex profile, but I can see where someone would get bacon from. I get some Guinness Draught type smoke, and some Guinness type smoothness. If Guinness was stronger and infused with chocolate and meat, you could compare it to this beer. Rating: Average
Score: 73%
There is a good chance that if you do not like smoked meat you will not like this beer. And if you think combining smoked meat and beer is taboo, you probably didn't grow up in the Midwest of America. I'm not sure what it is about beer, but as a medium it seems to get away with using flavors that would be disgusting in other drinks. For example, I don't think I would reach for a bacon flavored soda...but bacon beer? Bring it on.
At 6% ABV this beer has good depth and is boozy enough to ponder. The combination of smoked meat, a flavor you probably don't want too much of, and and a decently substantial ABV means that you might actually want to pour this beer into your snifter and mull over it. Or fry up a pound of bacon and drink 6 of these to help that delicious bacon slide down the hatch.
This is medium-bodied, has moderate depth and good complexity. I like the fact that there is a good amount of chocolate in the mix. The smokey quality is surprisingly subtle and not over the top at all. I actually look forward to trying more smoked beers in the future to see where this beer sits on the spectrum of smokiness. The meat quality is unique, for sure, but a bit much for me. It almost borders on distracting when the main character is supposed to be smoke. I would drink this on occasion, and I could see myself having a random craving for this beer. Cheers.
No comments:
Post a Comment