Dublin: the lighter side of porter.

Name: Dublin Porter.
Brewery: Guinness, St. James's Gate, Dublin.
ABV: 3.8%
Style: Porter.

Availability: Widely available in most supermarkets.

What I paid for mine: £1.79 (Tesco).

Try if you like: Coffee, dark chocolate, vanilla, stout, porter, dark ale.

When I'm about to drink a porter, there is a volume of expectation with a bar set extremely high by both Fuller's London Porter and the similarly syrupy Anchor Porter: I want a porter to be rich, dark, smokey and bittersweetly indulgent which both of these aforementioned ales most certainly are. Guinness have made a porter which brings forth some of these things but also foregoes and in their place are some surprises - ones that were a welcome change and a fresh interpretation of something I deeply adore: the porter.

Guinness have been 'upping their game' of late no doubt thanks to all the microbrewery shenanigans that have been dominating the brewing headlines for the past five years and anyone who has been reading this blog for a wee while will know what I think of their recent Hop House 13 lager, released as part of the 'Brewer's Project' range. Dublin porter also hails from this recent mega-engagement that the empirical St. James's Gate brewery has been making with the modern market. I'm very pleased to say that those lads and ladies in Dublin have made a porter definitely worth spending time with. At 3.8%, nobody is going to need a stomach pump before they operate heavy machinery post-Dublin consumption and you don't feel that in the head at all. What surprised me the most was that nor do you feel it in the stomach: this is a light porter. You could session this boy. That's right: session. It's that light.

However, this 'lightness' come with a compromise on indulgence: where some porters are essentially smoked-treacle-sumptuousness, Dublin forgoes the real smack of full body and as a result, has a slightly more measured flavour than you might expect from this type of beer. I feel that I must interject myself here, though, and state that this is not a negative for the brew in any way, shape or form: it simply is just lighter. I dare say it is also more refreshing than any other porter I have tried and this is what surprised me the most: it was fresh both on the nose and the tongue.

The characteristic porter treacle-brown is definitely presented in the pour and on the palette but, as I mentioned before, it is measured in favour with more a vanilla tone as opposed to the traditional dark chocolate smoke and I mean it when I say vanilla: it is most certainly there more so than the caramel the bottle cites. These smokey flavours are definitely there but they come in the echo of the finish and the memory of baking biscuit will waft from the back of your throat as you finish your drop. 

You keep going back for sip after sip awaiting the weight of the beer to come in yet it never does. You do get coffee and you do get toasted malt but a reserved delivery is the overall experience. I can really see this doing well as a beer to enjoy when watching outdoor sport in Autumn and winter and its lighter percentage will mean you can actually engage in critical analysis of the action with your comrades without needing to concentrate like a neurosurgeon. Guinness have made a good porter hear and if you do find some porters a little too sickly or indeed, find Guinness draught too thick and disappointing, this is a fantastic antidote. 

Sea Fury - finally, the storm reaches my shores!

Name: Sea Fury
Brewery: Sharps, Cornwall
ABV: 5%
Style: Special Ale
Where I found mine: Sainsbury's and Tesco for around £1.90

Try if you like: Gem, Broadside, stronger ales like Fullers 1845, dark fruits, raisins and rum, treacle.

If the majority of you, my dear readers, are anything like me, you'll be familiar with discovering a beer then spending a good hour  or two looking through the brewery's website, longingly flitting through their full range and forlornly admiring the breadth of output on offer as only one or two of the stable will ever be in your everyday reach. I often do this with Theakstone (as all I've ever seen in the flesh is XB and the gorgeously rich Old Peculier). I used to count Sharps of Rock, Cornwall amongst this company but thanks to the ever climbing profile of their most famous beer, Doombar, the rest of their paddock is seeing the light of day in supermarkets. 

One beer I particularly used to hanker for is the very one I found in my local branch of Tesco of all places: Sea Fury. Those who have read this will know what I think of Doombar (to save you reading the review - although please do! - I adore the stuff) and my expectations for this ale were set very, very high indeed. Sharps know what they are doing. They also seem to brew with my palette in mind. If that is the case, in my narcissistic mind, they brewed this beer bespoke to my own mouth. After reading it's profile on the home website, (I'll admit more than a few times) I knew we'd get along famously. How foolish And pessimistic I was to think I would never, ever possess one.

The darker side of brewery is where my preferences seem to go and when the weather turns on us here in the UK, after spending so little time with us in true heart-breaker fashion - I feel my beer-soul yearning those autumnal, stewed fruit and smoke flavours. Imagine then, how my grizzled British psyche felt when I first read the words: "An aroma of inviting roasted and dark berry notes gives way to sumptuous, fruity, malty flavour and a moreish hop finish." on the Sharps website. It danced like frolicking Morris dancers 'neath a sun-blushed maypole (Freudian slip?). I cannot begin to tell you how true to this description it is to actually drink...oh okay, maybe I will!

Rich. A wave of richness and a depth of stewed and rum-soaked dark fruits and roasted malts tumbling, crashing and rolling in biscuity malt sweetness that just keeps giving and giving and giving before receeding out to leave you in a misting of hop bitterness that never really finds a sharp edge but balances the rich sugars very well indeed. If you have tried strong ales, you'll love this and from tasting it, you'll be wondering how the percentage is only 5% abv: it does not taste like a beer of that measure: it belongs with the Old Dan's and Fullers 1845. However, it doesn't floor you as they do but it does arrest the senses and drag you down into its chestnut brown depths. Sea Fury is an apt moniker for the way the beer feels in the mouth: it is delicately carbonated and as odd as this may sound, it feels in the mouth like the churning foam seen in rough, shale-breaking surf around this fair isle's coasts. It's as if you were tasting the churn from the breakers of an indulgent, malt-steeped ocean: taste it and you will hopefully know what I mean - it is a unique mouthful that gives you a passionate, raisiny plunge. Unless you can't tell already, I think Sharps have made an incredible special ale here and it really does suit the shift from summer to autumn. I'm so exited to try this again and as with all beers I find and adore, I fear it's time being as fleeting as the summer sun: long may this furious brew batter our supermarket shelves! An absolute modern classic that has shot up into my favourites list.