Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

  • Home
  • About
  • Editorial
  • Birthdays
  • Art & Beer

Socialize

  • Dribbble
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
Powered by Head Quarters Built on WordPress
You are here: Home / Reviews / Session #7: The Brew Zoo

Session #7: The Brew Zoo

September 8, 2007 By Jay Brooks

This month’s Session, hosted by Rick Lyke at Lyke2Drink, is another clever one. The theme is the Brew Zoo, meaning beers with animal names or labels, of which the beer world is replete with examples. Today was my son Porter’s birthday party (his actual day is Monday) and so I wasn’t able to blog yesterday because there was just too much to do to get ready for the party. So instead I decided to have something furry today.

In honor of Porter’s birthday, I decided on an English Porter I picked up somewhere during my recent travels. It’s from Nethergate Brewery, which is in Suffolk, England. It’s called Old Growler and is, of course, a porter. I tried it with my friend Sean Paxton, The Homebrew Chef, who was at the party to help celebrate Porter’s birthday with his wife and new baby girl, Olivia.

The beer had a beautiful color, black with reddish purple streaks, a very appropriate color which I’ll explain later. It also had a thick tan head with great lace and silky rich aromas of milk chocolate and dry powdered cocoa. Silky smooth and rich, thick with milk chocolate flavor and just a touch of vanilla and hazelnut. The hops are nicely restrained. They’re like finding a black hole, we can’t really perceive them but know they’re there by the obvious balance. The finish is very dry. There’s a lot going on in this complex porter and it would make a wonderful dessert beer.

Here’s how the brewery describes the beer:

Our famous porter has won at the CAMRA winter festival twice, the only brewery to do so, first in 1998 and again in 2003, also winning the highest accolade Supreme Champion in 2003. Also Supreme Champion at the Chicago International Beer Festival in 2004, in the porter category. A complex, satisfying porter, smooth and distinctive. Roast malt and fruit feature in the palate. The finish is powerfully hoppy with a hint of liquorice.

But back to the story of the reddish purple color.

Before my son Porter was born, my wife and I came up with a list of five boys’ names and girls’ names that we both liked. We had to do both since we didn’t know whether we were having a boy or girl. As perhaps the most anal-retentive couple on the planet we went through months of perusing baby name books and compiling lists, which we would then compare and knock each other’s out until at long last we came up with ones we could each live with to name our child. The idea was that armed with a few names we both liked, we’d see which one best fit after he or she was born. At one point, I even tried to get Bullwinkle on the list, but that didn’t last long. Brewer also made the short list, and I still like the sound of it for a name. Porter, of course, was on the final list, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be the winner. But then my son was born. At our Lamaze classes and in my reading, somehow I missed the information that there’s a point in the birth where the baby isn’t getting any oxygen before it takes its first breath.

So I was quite alarmed when my new son was a dull purple when he first made his entry into the world. As the doctor carted him off for his initial testing, I didn’t even know if he was breathing and was very nearly panicking. My first thought naturally was “is he okay?” After being assured that this was normal and that he was just fine, I began to calm down and drink in the sight of my first born child: the wiggling fingers and toes, the bleating cries and gasps of first breaths, and odd purple discoloration on reddish pink skin. My second thought then was “wow, he’s the color of a nice robust porter.” Later, after we were moved into a room, I was recounting these thoughts to my wife. She just looked at me, smiling, and said “well … I guess we know what his name is.” And that’s how my blond-haired, blue-eyed boy became a Porter.

Porter at his 6th birthday party, in the midst of his own zoo.

 

Filed Under: Reviews, The Session Tagged With: Europe, Great Britain



Comments

  1. Ainz says

    September 10, 2007 at 12:31 pm

    What a great shot and great smile. I hope it was a great day for him and all who ventured to Novato. Sorry I couldn’t make it.

  2. Loren says

    September 11, 2007 at 4:41 am

    Awesome story and picture. Just be glad he didn’t turn out pink or you may have named him Frambozen!

    Cheers!

  3. Kristi says

    September 27, 2007 at 2:19 pm

    He is precious! I can’t believe how big he’s getting – y’all have done a great job:) What a handsome lad!

Find Something

Northern California Breweries

Please consider purchasing my latest book, California Breweries North, available from Amazon, or ask for it at your local bookstore.

Beer Bulletin Email

Enter your email address to receive daily digests:

Recent Comments

  • Lucy Corne on Beer Birthday: Lucy Corne-Duthie
  • Kendall Staggs on Beer In Ads #4341: Miss Rheingold 1955 Filling Yuletide Requests
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Robert Burns ยป Brookston Beer Bulletin on John Barleycorn
  • Susan Appel on Historic Beer Birthday: John Roehm
  • S. Pavelka on Beer Birthday: Rich Norgrove

Recent Posts

  • Historic Beer Birthday: Frederick August Poth March 20, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Frederick J. Poth March 20, 2023
  • Beer Birthday: Lee Chase March 20, 2023
  • Historic Beer Birthday: Benjamin Truman March 20, 2023
  • Beer In Ads #4385: Miss Rheingold 1957 Portrait Preview March 19, 2023

Tag Cloud

Advertising Anheuser-Busch Announcements Bay Area Belgium Brewers Association Brewing Equipment Budweiser Business California Christmas Europe France Germany Guinness Health & Beer History Holidays Hops Humor Infographics Kegs Law Mainstream Coverage Miller Brewing Northern California Pabst Packaging Patent Pennsylvania Press Release Prohibitionists Rheingold San Francisco Schlitz Science Science of Brewing Sports Statistics The Netherlands UK Uncategorized United States Video Washington

The Sessions

session_logo_all_text_1500

Next Session: Dec. 7, 2018
#142: One More for the Road
Previous Sessions
  • #141: Future of Beer Blogging
  • #140: Pivo
  • #139: Beer & the Good Life
  • #138: The Good in Wood
  • #137: German Wheat
Archive, History & Hosting

Typology Tuesday

Typology-png
Next Typology:
On or Before March 29, 2016
#3: Irish-Style Dry Stout
Previous Typologies
  • #2: Bock Feb. 2016
  • #1: Barley Wine Jan. 2016
Archive & History

This month’s posts

March 2023
S M T W T F S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Feb    

BBB Archives

Go to mobile version