Port Brewing Tasting at Wine Affairs Recap
It’s great to see some of San Diego’s finest is starting to make its way up to the San Jose area. Last month Wine Affairs, via distributor Wine Warehouse, hosted a small tasting event featuring the beers from The Lost Abbey. This month, they decided to host a tasting of a few beers from Port Brewing. This is not surprising in some ways. Firstly, Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey are pretty much the same brewing company. Think of it as two sides of the same coin. Secondly, Wine Warehouse is the sole distributor for Port Brewing/Lost Abbey and it only make sense one tasting should follow another.
Port Brewing got its start as a spin-off of the highly acclaimed Pizza Port brewpubs. They were the production facility that churned out the bottled versions of the popular beers found in the various Pizza Port locations. A little bit of trivia: Port Brewing’s current location is the old Stone Brewing location.
Midnight Session, 5.0% ABV
Midnight Session pours out a very dark brown beer with a brown head. Beer has a slightly sweet malt aroma with a robust, deeply roasted malt character and low hop aroma. Flavor is roasty with bittersweet, dark chocolate flavors and a touch of black coffee. Hop bitterness is low, hop flavor is low. This is a medium-low bodied beer with an almost creamy carbonation and a slightly dry finish.
Midnight Session is a dark lager; traditional versions are known as schwarzbier. I thought this was a good example of the style, very tasty without the heaviness that can be associated with stouts. After all, this is a lager.
Hot Rocks, 6.5% ABV
A little hazy, dark brown color with amber highlights and a thin, tan head. Aroma has a muted malt character and a slight spice note from the alcohol. Flavor is malty; slightly sweet with a bit of caramelization. Hop flavor and bitterness is low. Surprisingly low/medium-low in body, Hot Rocks has a matching level of carbonation and has a slight astringency in the mouthfeel.
This is an interesting beer, arguably because of the way it was brewed. You can check out the photos on The Lost Abbey website.
Wipeout IPA, 7.0% ABV
Clear, orange-gold color with an off-white head. Grapefruit/citrus hop aromas hit my nose first, followed by a slight garlicy character; the beer’s aroma is also very floral. The flavor is primarily hoppy, lots of fruit, grapefruit/citrus character and enough malt for balance, at least for the style. Hop bitterness is high. Body is medium/medium-high, carbonation is medium. There is an astringency in the finish that is probably from the hops.
Pretty much what a West Coast IPA should taste like. While I liked it, I thought it could’ve used a little more balance by allowing the malt flavors to come through a little bit.
Hop 15, 10% ABV
Slightly hazy orange/amber color with a thin, white head. Aroma is hop forward, lots of tropical fruit aroma. Mrs. BetterBeerBlog called it “perfumy”. I also noticed alcohol in the aroma as well. The flavor is sweet, which is surprising because of how much hops are in this beer. It is candy-like in its sweetness. The hop flavor matches the aroma; fruity and tropical. Hop bitterness is high but not clingy. Full bodied beer with a medium carbonation and an astringent mouthfeel.
According to Kurt from Wine Warehouse, Hop 15 was made with 15 different types of hops added in every 15 minutes during the boil. Sounds like one, expensive beer to make.
4-year Anniversary Ale, 10% ABV
Hazy amber color with a white head. Lots of hop aroma, slightly citrus and tropical fruit in nature. Flavor has a “catty”/garlicy hop flavor with a toasty/caramel malt backbone for support. Body is full, carbonation is medium with a slight alcohol spice while the mouthfeel has a slight bit of alcohol warmth.
Out of the last 3 hoppy beers, this is probably the one I like the most. While it has a boatload of hop character, Port Brewing has allowed the malt to shine though a little by brewing this beer with a little more balance.
Overall
Wine Affairs continues to impress. The plan is to try and do a monthly, horizontal tasting of beers from a specific brewery. More power to them. It’s good to see how a brewery’s beer stand up next to each other; you get a better idea of the “house” character of a brewery.
There were a few things that caught my interest: first, I noted low the carbonation level was in all the beers we tried that evening. That being said, as the tasting kept on, these beers were sitting in open bottles. It’s conceivable the lack of carbonation might have been due to that. Also, about all the Port Brewing beers were cloudy leading me to believe they were all bottle conditioned.
To finish the day off, Sammy ordered a bottle of Saison D’Erpe-Mere from KleinBrouwerij De Glazen Toren. While I’ve had this beer before, I’m not sure if I reviewed it formally for the site. I didn’t do a formal review for this post simply because sometimes, you just want to have a good beer without thinking about it.
I’m already looking forward to the next set of tastings and I believe they’ll be holding another “End of June” beerfest next week. Come back to the blog for exact details.
