Now I finally get round to it! Hurrah!
So, I have some Chocolate Orange Porter, would you like to know how it tastes this fine Easter and my thoughts on drinking it? Would you like to know more?
First of all, I had chilled this since laying my grubby mitts upon it and it had been chilled in the Crafty One a good while before that. I had been forewarned that it might be a tad frisky but the pour was cool and calm and collected. Definite oranges hit the nose when one leaned in and there was a feeling that this was somehow linked to the Crusades in that the only place that isn't Seville that I know that grows oranges or exports them or something is Jaffa in modern-day Israel. I may be trying too hard to make that link. Suffice to say, there were oranges. If there was chocolate it was lighter than the orange. I let it stand a while before going further, mostly because I was attempting to cook my tea at the same time. Never try to multi-task with beer on the line!
On my return at the dinner table something rather interesting had taken place, released from the confines of the fridge and the restrictions of being cooled the whole thing had taken something of a breath and had warmed. Oranges were now very much on the nose with a blanket of bitter dark chocolate that rapidly filled the nostrils. Once onto the tongue, like the whale releasing Jonah, the orange dominated the start of proceedings before giving way to a kind of rich, if thin, seam of porter - deep and dark like the bowels of the leviathan - before it roiled in the mouth. Storms broke, waves crashed, thunder rolls in the roof of the mouth before there is a still small voice of dark chocolate that whispers as it slides into the aftertaste. Telling tales of After Eights and grandmother's Christmas treats, the dark bitterness dominates the end of the mouthful, leaving small skeins of orange on the sides of the mouth and a feeling that one has seen something interesting indeed.
Each mouthful merely adds to that stormy crescendo, first the orange builds and then the chocolate afterward, so that one is minded of Matchmakers back in the early 90s when they were good and before they became strange and parodied versions of themselves, though the orange definitely tastes more natural. If this were Jeremiah then there is no doubting the prophecy; if Hosea, then this was not his wife-to-be; if Isaiah, then this is the hill to which we turn. It is a well-balanced porter with plenty going on but soft enough to accompany a meal. No dessert ale, this is something for the hard-working man, perhaps at the end of the week and after the preaching in the pulpit. Refreshing, in its way, but not like a pale or an IPA, this is a full-bodied partner to the chocolate egg and the saccharine sweetness of the treats one has at this time of year, a bitter dark version, twisted and clever, hiding from mere human eyes and perhaps only truly visible on the infra-red spectrum.
Certainly it survived the onslaught of Mexican soup with extra spices, which is no mean feat given how much torture my tastebuds receive from me with meals involving spices, and held its own against all comers. Serving to take the sting from the heat of the whole affair whilst allowing the flavours to come to the fore. As a home brewed porter, this is pretty damn' good!
Enjoy best following theological discussion of the Passion and the nature of Genesis, comparing prophecy from prophet to prophet in the Torah but with an awareness that the nature of man is for rest and recuperation. Take a little at a time, enjoy the experience, at 5.3% ABV it's small enough to avoid a headache in the morning but strong enough to discourage sessioning or being chased by something bigger and, given the nature of theology, that is perhaps for the best!
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