Beer – #77 – KJD Brewing – Chocolate Cherry Porter

In for a penny…. KJD Brewing Chocolate Cherry Porter Brewed at the Wigram Brewing Company in the style of a Porter (we’re on a theme here) and this one is from Christchurch, New Zealand.

So then the story advances a frame to this. And as always they love to talk it up “Alluringly rich, our deep mahogany coloured porter has a delightful malty sweetness with notes of chocolate and toffee. Entwined within a delicate balance of dried fruit esters reminiscent of plums, prunes and raisins, Marlborough sun-ripened cherries added in the final stage of fermentation make this delectable beer dance on your tastebuds.”

Have to say that the label gets a 10 but they could gussy up the lid an this would get 11/10 just for looking great in the bottle. 500ml of a 6% beer, this one a 2010 “vintage” which isn’t something you often say after the word “beer”. It’s also a serve a room temperature beer, which is a disaster, unless I move my office to the fridge where this has been for a bit of R & R.

I don’t mind going against advice though, or against my better judgement so I’m just going to get in. There’s a lovely aroma, deep chocolate. And a disappearing head. It’s a nice dark colour, you could talk yourself into seeing a redness, and the malt sweetness adds to the intrigue. It’s fairly tangy on the tongue, but not so much that it’s a distraction, and then a lovely smooth taste, sort of fruity comforting, there’s nothing deep or mysterious in this, except that there is. And as it warms and sits I begin to get more of the flavour and body, and it makes me wonder if this is a fruit based beer or a flavoured porter, it’s a line call.

Lets say that I’d be comfortable to buy this for friends to drink, I’d be happy that there is enough challenge in this to make them enjoy it without it being intrusive or a wrestle for them, and that makes this ok in my book. But it relegates this to a beer that you’d serve your father, and if you’re looking to have a beer that you have an experience with, and I’ve had a few of those, then whist the intrigue of the taste and implied cherry-ness might catch you eye it really isn’t more then a glance.

Annoying that though. I might have completely not got the Porter thing, and that’s my fault and not that of the beer. The pdubyah-o-meter settles in it’s arbitrary way at about a low 7, which is the average, or the level where I think I’m prepared to enjoy a beer without having a hissy fit about it. I wish I’d enjoyed a better journey with each mouthful, and discovered a new thing each time, or the same thing but better.

The end thing is that I’d like to feel that I’m drinking a beer to discover and enjoy it, and I find myself thinking with this, and that in this case , that I might be drinking this because it’s a beer that ok to drink, which although in and of itself not a bad thing, but that if I wanted a beer just to drink that I might be drinking something else, this just isn’t a memorable beer. And that is the worst grammatical sentence I tried to put together, so to summarise: “B+ must try harder”