Saturday, April 3, 2010

Imperial Oak Aged Robust Porter (8.5%)


This Victorian brewer has an interesting range of beers, and my brother and I do enjoy the standard Robust Porter Bridge Road Brewery make, and so we both jumped at the chance to get a bottle each of this oak aged version. This excitement is enhanced coming from having tried the Moo Brew Oak Aged Imperial Stout (especially on tap). These beers are perfect for trying out this method of aging, as the beer is allowed to mellow and even gain body from the oak.
While the standard robust porter has great chocolate, coffee and caramel favours coming through, the only down side seems to be the thin mouthfeel. However, this is where the oak aged version shines creating a great mouthfeel to go with the favours in the beer. and while the standard robust porter allows the drinker to separate between the flavours, the mellowing of the flavours in the oak melds them all together for a greatly complex, but single taste in the beer that with the mouthfeel just makes you want to roll it over your tongue and slowly sip this beer away. warming the beer does not seem to ruin this sensation either, which is also a bonus.
For me, having had the Moo Brew oak aged stout on tap, I rate that over this beer, but would also like to see Bridge Road keg some of their next batch to see if they can add more complexity to the beer as seems to have happened in the Moo Brew.
While, like the Moo brew, I wouldn't recommend a person that doesn't like stouts or darker beers to try this, for anyone that does enjoy them, this is one beer to try, and see the higher potentials possible for stouts/porters.

Cheers,

Beefy

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