Brewdog: Abstrakt AB24 (Scotland: Baltic Porter: 12% ABV)
Visual: Deep brown to black. Light toffee brown creamy head.
Nose: Brown sugar. Clotted cream. Bitter coffee. Dry roasted nuts.
Body: Treacle. Milky chocolate and cream. Sour cream. Bitter coffee. Pecans. Nettles prickle. Roasted nuts.
Finish: Sour cream. Milky chocolate. Pecans. Brown sugar. Clotted cream. Hop oils. Bitter coffee.
Conclusion: I’ve often tried to work out where Imperial Porters differ from their close cousin, Imperial Stouts. Now we have this – an imperial strength Baltic porter. That is just trying to make me confused. It is different, but I guess it is one of those you know it when you see it kind of things. However I think this is a good example for me to take a run and and try to elucidate the differences.
The coffee is dominant – creamy and milky but still bitter. This tends to be a good tell that you are dealing with some kind of porter in my experience, rather than the weightier bitter coffee notes I tend to find in an Imperial Stout.
The other real stand out difference is a savoury to sour cream thickness – It has similar thickness to an imperial stout, but without as much dominance of the sweet character. Much more grounded, though with some sweet notes around the edges.
Now, that isn’t to say that there aren’t separate sweet notes – there is a real brown sugar character – but the base is roasted nuts, thick sour cream and coffee. The sweetness feels more likely to come out as a slight sweet pecan nut character than anything else.
There, in this particular case this is how an Imperial Baltic Porters stands out from an Imperial Stout – which will help you not a jot with any other example, but I tried, right?
Anyway, that said this is delivered very smooth, with strong hints to the abv in alcohol feel not burn – they match with the thick, heavy sour cream notes so actually don’t seem too out of place here. It results in a well delivered beer, well made, but the more savoury notes are a tad over emphasised for my tastes, so it isn’t always for me. Still, I appreciated what it does, and being so well made means I can enjoy it despite that.
So – well made, a good example of the style, not 100% for me.
Background: Wasn’t quite sure if I should list this under Imperial Porter, or Baltic Porter, or go the whole hog with Imperial Baltic Porter. Went with Baltic Porter in the end. Not for any particular reason beyond the fact it is such a little used tag. I was intrigued to find out, on googling to make my mind up, that a Baltic porter generally uses lager yeast, or cold fermented ale yeast. Huh, never knew that. May be worth mentioning at this point that, as always, I am not an unbiased actor on Brewdog beers. This Baltic Porter is made with coffee and brown sugar. I grabbed this directly from Brewdog’s shop and was drunk while listening to some of the over the top sound of Mclusky.
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