Beer of the Weekend #108: Mocha Porter
Friday Night Fights is back! I’m unsure if this is the season premier, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it since August. Tonight’s main fight (holy shit — there’s already been a knock out) features a boxer who was 21 pounds heavier a week ago. The guy’s insane to lose that much weight in a week. (Here’s a first: Brian Kenny, at the ESPN studio in Bristol, is talking to boxing analyst Dan Rafael via Skype. Wow.)
Also back tonight is BotW. A week ago, on the final night of my holiday trip to Iowa, I tried Millsteam’s Colony Oatmeal Stout. It was top-notch stuff, but it was an informal drinking at Mergatti’s crib. (It amazes me: as much of a beer nut as Mergatti is — it’s in the motherfucker’s blood, for Christ’s sake — he has just one pint glass, which I let him use because it was so dirty looking.) COS is a seasonal brew, one I won’t be able to try again until next November, so I wish I would have been able to give it the proper attention. But it was nice to drink without the nerdy hassle of writing about it. As mentioned during my NorCal tour, I never get to enjoy drinking beer anymore, at least until I’ve documented it. I feel bad about sampling a new beer when I’m not in a situation to write about the experience. It’s the dark side of being a beer connoisseur.
ANYWAY. The beer this weekend is Mocha Porter brewed by the Rogue Brewery of Newport, Oregon.
Serving type: Six 12-ounce bottles.
Appearance: Poured a deep, probably opaque black (I don’t have a trusty lamp to test the glass). A thin, foamy, tan head developed and dissipated to leave a spotted lacing.
Smell: Lots of toasted coffee malts, and there’s also dark chocolate mixed in. I think there’s also a little bit of caramel. Mainly the smell is dominated by a toasted scent. That’s it — just toasted.
Taste: The initial taste starts off bitter with the toasted coffee malts, but ends smooth and balanced with the dark chocolate and hint of caramel from the smell. As it warms, something a little sweeter, almost sugary, comes into play, but I can’t really pin it down. Plum, maybe.
Drinkability: Mocha Porter is a decent dark beer, but it’s a little too much of a one-trick pony for me. Too much toasted malts and not enough variety for balance.
Fun facts about Mocha Porter:
-Price: $10.59/sixer at the Beach BevMo!. (Notice I’m now placing a period behind BevMo! when it appears at the end of sentences. I had previously let the exclamation point double as proper, sentence ending punctuation, but no more.)
-Serving temperature: 45-50ºF.
-Alcohol content: 5.3 percent ABV.
-Food pairings: The Rogue website recommends “beef, desserts.” BA recommends barbecue, buttery cheeses (like Brie, Gouda, Havarti, and Swiss), chocolate dessert, and beef (smoked or grilled).
-IBU: 54.51.
-Gravity: 14º Plato.
-Let’s talk about Beer Karma, shall we? All BeerAdvocate users accumulate Beer Karma, which BA describes as:
“Yet not” is right. Beer Karma is an unpredictable bitch. My BK when I opened my BA account was 35. I thought it’d be no sweat amassing 250 points and be dubbed an Initiate, the second of 12 levels in the “Halls of Beerdom” (before that, all member are considered Acolytes). (Yes, this is totally nerdy, but bear with me.) However, my BK has increased by only one or two points for each review I’ve done. Before tasting Mahr’s Weisse my BK stood at 99. After submitting my review, it jumped to 110. What gives? According to BeerAdvocate, “The origins of Beer Karma, and its mystical calculations, remain unknown. Seeking it out is not the way of Beer Karma,” so I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. But I can’t help check how much (or, more often, how little) my BK has increased.
The Quiet Man’s grade: B+.
Also back tonight is BotW. A week ago, on the final night of my holiday trip to Iowa, I tried Millsteam’s Colony Oatmeal Stout. It was top-notch stuff, but it was an informal drinking at Mergatti’s crib. (It amazes me: as much of a beer nut as Mergatti is — it’s in the motherfucker’s blood, for Christ’s sake — he has just one pint glass, which I let him use because it was so dirty looking.) COS is a seasonal brew, one I won’t be able to try again until next November, so I wish I would have been able to give it the proper attention. But it was nice to drink without the nerdy hassle of writing about it. As mentioned during my NorCal tour, I never get to enjoy drinking beer anymore, at least until I’ve documented it. I feel bad about sampling a new beer when I’m not in a situation to write about the experience. It’s the dark side of being a beer connoisseur.
ANYWAY. The beer this weekend is Mocha Porter brewed by the Rogue Brewery of Newport, Oregon.
Serving type: Six 12-ounce bottles.
Appearance: Poured a deep, probably opaque black (I don’t have a trusty lamp to test the glass). A thin, foamy, tan head developed and dissipated to leave a spotted lacing.
Smell: Lots of toasted coffee malts, and there’s also dark chocolate mixed in. I think there’s also a little bit of caramel. Mainly the smell is dominated by a toasted scent. That’s it — just toasted.
Taste: The initial taste starts off bitter with the toasted coffee malts, but ends smooth and balanced with the dark chocolate and hint of caramel from the smell. As it warms, something a little sweeter, almost sugary, comes into play, but I can’t really pin it down. Plum, maybe.
Drinkability: Mocha Porter is a decent dark beer, but it’s a little too much of a one-trick pony for me. Too much toasted malts and not enough variety for balance.
Fun facts about Mocha Porter:
-Price: $10.59/sixer at the Beach BevMo!. (Notice I’m now placing a period behind BevMo! when it appears at the end of sentences. I had previously let the exclamation point double as proper, sentence ending punctuation, but no more.)
-Serving temperature: 45-50ºF.
-Alcohol content: 5.3 percent ABV.
-Food pairings: The Rogue website recommends “beef, desserts.” BA recommends barbecue, buttery cheeses (like Brie, Gouda, Havarti, and Swiss), chocolate dessert, and beef (smoked or grilled).
-IBU: 54.51.
-Gravity: 14º Plato.
-Let’s talk about Beer Karma, shall we? All BeerAdvocate users accumulate Beer Karma, which BA describes as:
…a mystical measurement of what a user puts into BeerAdvocate.com. The more a user contributes, the more Beer Karma the site assigns to the user. It’s that simple, yet not.
“Yet not” is right. Beer Karma is an unpredictable bitch. My BK when I opened my BA account was 35. I thought it’d be no sweat amassing 250 points and be dubbed an Initiate, the second of 12 levels in the “Halls of Beerdom” (before that, all member are considered Acolytes). (Yes, this is totally nerdy, but bear with me.) However, my BK has increased by only one or two points for each review I’ve done. Before tasting Mahr’s Weisse my BK stood at 99. After submitting my review, it jumped to 110. What gives? According to BeerAdvocate, “The origins of Beer Karma, and its mystical calculations, remain unknown. Seeking it out is not the way of Beer Karma,” so I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. But I can’t help check how much (or, more often, how little) my BK has increased.
The Quiet Man’s grade: B+.
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