Porters and Stouts

The Vintage bar had a beer tasting evening of Porters and Stouts, there is no strict rules as to what classifies a beer as a Porter or a Stout, a Porter is basically a very dark beer and historically a "Stout Porter" was a strong "Porter (hence traditionally Stout was stronger than Porter, but this doesn't necessarily apply).

Anyway there was a group of about 10 guys turned up for the tasting, Sean the resident beer expert told us a bit about the history of Porter and then handed out the beers telling us a bit about each. We had the following:

"Profanity Stout" from Williams Brothers, a nice traditional fairly strong (7% ABV) Stout which has hints of fruit or berries to it but a slightly bitter after taste.

"Dry Stone Stout" from Hawkshead Brewery, which is an oatmeal stout (4.5% ABV) making it fairly "creamy" and has a distinct coffee and chocolate taste to it.

"Mochacinno Stout" from Pilot Beers, our new local brewery based here in Leith, this was actually a prototype beer made on their pilot kit and not the final commercial version. The brewer "Pat" was actually with us for the tasting and explained that they would be tweaking it a bit. It is a milk stout (currently 4.5% ABV, although Pat said the final version will probably be stronger) and has a distinct sweet chocolatey taste. It was the brewer himself who described it as reminiscent of "Nesquik Chocolate Milk Drink" and it was actually! It was good but I can see how upping the ABV a little could make it tastier.

"Heavy Water" from Beavertown Brewery is a big Imperial Stout, not only that but this was also a rather rare Oak Aged version weighing in at 10% ABV. And you can tell! It was heavy and thick with flavours of treacle and liquorice.

"Minoh Imperial Stout" from Minoh Beers is a Japanese beer, which is available in bottles at The Vintage and was voted World Best Beer in 2013. It's another big (8.5% ABV) chocolate and coffee flavoured although a bit too sweet for my taste.

It was a very good evening and Sean did an excellent job of selecting a good range of Stouts giving examples of the different styles available. Next month they're doing a "U.S. Craft Beers" tasting and "Belgian Beers" in March.