Stone Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans

Brewed By: Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido, California

Purchased: 12oz bottle from Binny's in Illinois; 2012

Style/ABV: American Porter, 5.9% 

 

Not too long ago, I had the Stone Smoked Porter, and I liked it. Tonight I'm reviewing that beer...on vanilla. Yum.

Stone Brewing are one of the more prominent breweries in the American craft brewing scene. They were founded in 1996 in San Marcos, California, and moved to Escondido, California where they recently expanded their operations. Stone was founded by Steve Wagner and Greg Koch. Koch has a reputation among the craft beer community for voicing his opinion, not putting up with shit, and standing behind his beer.

I'm not sure how the smoked malts used in this beer are going to play off the vanilla beans, but let's get the rundown on this beer. According to Stone's Smoked Porter with Vanilla Beans page, this beer was the brainchild of Small Batch Brewer, Laura Ulrich, who discovered that Stone's Smoked Porter tastes pretty good when mixed with vanilla ice cream. Thus, they began to brew Stone's Smoked Porter with vanilla beans. This beer clocks in at 5.9% ABV and 53 IBUs (identical to the original), and uses pale malts, crystal malts, chocolate malts, and peat-smoked malts. This beer also uses Columbus (pleasant) and Mt. Hood (mild, pleasant) hops. With that said, let's get this into a glass, and see how it favors compared to the original!

Stone Smoked Porter (w/ Vanilla Beans)

The beer pours pretty much identical to the regular Smoked Porter. You get 4 to 5 fingers of tan/khaki head, and the head is super dense, thick, and foamy. In low light the beer looks to be a dark black color, but when held to bright light this beer is actually dark ruby red, with hints of brown. There is a lot of carbonation in this beer in the form of medium-sized bubbles rising upwards. The head is hanging around, but as it falls down you get some nice lacing. 

The aroma on this is interesting...I'm getting sweetness that almost seems fruity at first. I'm pulling out vanilla bean, sweet vanilla, vanilla ice cream, wood, roast, chocolate, and some must. The smoke really seems to take a back seat to the vanilla in this, and manifests as a kind of musty character.

The taste is interesting. This seems to be a bit more thick and full-bodied than I remember it originally being, and I'm pulling out quite a bit more hoppiness (which could have a lot to do with the freshness of the beer). I'm getting a lot of roast, bitter cocoa, chocolate, coffee, some hints of earthy/spicy/floral and even citrus hop notes, and waves of vanilla bean and sweet vanilla. I'm getting some wood or ash in here as well, especially on the back.

As my review of the regular Smoked Porter indicates, I never found this beer to be overwhelmingly smokey at all. Here, the vanilla is also surprisingly subdued, but seems to mask up some of the smoke. You do get another layer of complexity though. Palate depth on this is better than the regular version, and complexity is still very high. The carbonation still seems to stretch this one a bit thin, but the mouthfeel is a solid medium-light to medium. Up front is some vanilla, chocolate, cocoa, coffee; the middle rolls into some vanilla, and burgeoning hops; you get ash, wood, roast, and hops on the finish. This finishes nice and dry; lingering smoke and hints of vanilla. 

Rating: Above-Average

 

I'm feeling a decent Above-Average on this. I actually do think I prefer this to the regular Smoked Porter, as it seems to add another layer of complexity while increasing the density of the mouthfeel just a bit more. The finish is ashy/woody as well, which seems to play off the carbonation more organically. Overall, this is an excellent Porter and a yummy beer that you could pair with many foods. I was expecting a dessert beer, but this is some refined stuff. I'd pair this with ribs, or with anything at a barbeque. Recommended.