My friends! Beer Week is once again finally upon us! That reminds me, with Beer Week here, I'm reminded that a few of my earliest posts dealt with last year's goings on. I totally glossed right past my one year anniversary! So let me take this opportunity to belatedly thank each and every person who has checked in here every other day over the past year. It's so cool and totally gratifying that people get a kick out of this stuff. It's also cool because it makes that 'est. 2012' up in the masthead look slightly less preposterous. Stay tuned, because I have zero plans of shutting this thing down any time soon. There's way too much beer that I haven't had. Anyway, now that that's out of the way, back to Beer Week and more importantly, this beer. Last year to celebrate the inaugural Beer Week all of the local brewers got together at Mt. Carmel to produce a big, monstrously hopped barleywine. A beer that I was able to try and thoroughly enjoy. But also a beer that I am kicking myself to this day for not grabbing a six pack of. I imagine it would've aged amazingly. If anybody was forward thinking enough to lay a few bottles of that down let me know how they turned out! For this year's version Rivertown handled the brewing and bottling. There were also a few more cooks in the kitchen on this one. But in this case, that is categorically an advantage, as it just means that there are more Cincinnati breweries throwing their two cents in. Collaborating on Embree's Northern Dark Baltic Porter are Blank Slate, Christian Moerlein, 50 West, Great Crescent, Listermann, Moerlein Lager House, Mt. Carmel, Rivertown, Rock Bottom, Samuel Adams, and Triple Digit. Phew! I can't imagine there are too may cities in America that can boast too many more great craft breweries than that. OK, I've rambled enough. Let's see what we've got here. To the beer!
Embree's pours, what appears at first glance, to be an opaque black, Upon further inspection, however, it seems to be more of a deep, silky, chestnut brown with the tiniest red highlights struggling to make their way out. They can only make that escape when the glass is held up to very bright light. It's topped by a thin layer of tightly bubbled tan head. It's not surprising that a beer at this high ABV, 10.94% (!), doesn't have a huge fluffy head. What the head lacks in stature, it certainly makes up for in stubbornness. It's hangs around as a thin rim for a good long while.
Intense dark fruit notes really take the lead on the aromas here. Sweet, aromatic hints of raisin, plum, date, cherry and even some banana are evident. The fruitiness is followed up by notes of burnt candied sugar and faint hints of milky chocolate, and iced coffee. Pretty delightful all around. I certainly was not expecting a beer this fruit forward when I poured it. It's almost a bit Belgian-like in it's complexity.
Embree's is again surprising in it's body. A bit lighter than I was expecting. It's not insubstantial, don't get me wrong, but it's not a syrupy viscous beer as one wouldn't be crazy for expecting from a porter nearing 11% ABV. The medium body and moderate carbonation result in a beer possesing of a decadent creamy smoothness. Once again, the roasty flavors take a back seat to the much more pronounced fruitiness. A toffee/ molasses malt sweetness mixes with flavors of raisin, date, red apple, and even some very faint smoky licorice. There is a very subtle, and I mean very, biter coffee that comes out the end and serves to dry things out a bit. There is zero booziness on this beer. None, it's kind of shocking.
I took kind of an odd track with this beer. At first I loved it. The aromas are amazing and the first sip was quite tasty. Afterwards I kind of soured on it a bit. I think I was hoping for a heftier body and more roasty flavors. But by the time I finished the beer I had swung back around full circle to enjoying it. Making a beer this strong in alcohol so drinkable is a pretty astonishing feat. Add to that the lovely fruity complexity and I'm sold. Since I did manage to snag a sixer of this year's collaboration I already have two bottles of this down in the basement. I'll be excited to see what a year or two in the cellar will bring out of this beer.
I'm aware that I've got plenty of readers from far flung climes. But for those of you from the Tri-State area, and that's most of you, get out and enjoy Beer Week! Just about every better beer bar or establishment is doing something to celebrate. Go out and try some great beer. The good folks over at Hoperatives have the full listing of events. Also, keep it tuned here over the next week and a half or so for Beer Week related goodness from me!
HD
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