Review: Half Pints' Pothole Porter

Review: Half Pints' Pothole Porter by Cody La Bière
When I think of beer in the spring & summer seasons, I think of hefeweizens, witbiers, and yes even lagers. However, I don't consider stouts and porters to be a warm weather style of beer. However, every April Half Pints Brewing releases their Pothole Porter and it attracts a great amount of fan affair, just like everything else they release.

I reviewed Pothole Porter originally back in 2010 (check out review here) and two years later.. it's time to review it again!

Appearance: Comes in a 650mL bottle, which is good if you want to share it.. but in my case, a 341mL is usually the most I'll need, but hey.. more beer is still good. Pours a thick dark coffee colour with a bit of a roasty meets chocolate chip cookie dough brown head, tanny. The head is identical to when the photo was taken.. a few millimetres and not going anywhere.

Aroma: I'm not noticing much really, especially compared to the 2010 batch. I notice a slight hint of roasted coffee bean, a bit reminiscent to their Stir Stick Stout, slightly sweet but that's all I notice so far.

Taste: From the roasted malt, it gives off a bit of a bitter taste, well.. kind of like coffee, incredibly roasty. The aftertaste stings the tongue and lingers for a while. A bit reminiscent of their Stir Stick Stout but nowhere near as strong in taste as Stir Stick.. though the Pothole Porter is damned 7.9% ABV!

Overall Thoughts: I wish I could go into more detail for this beer, but honestly this is just about like any other porter I've had in my life.. coffee, bitterness lingers on palate for a while and bit roasty. It's a decent porter, but as I said before.. I don't really find that porters mix well with me when it's 20C outside. If it was March on the other hand, I'd be all over this. It costs approximately $6.50 for a 650mL bottle at local Liquormarts, while pricier than other porters or stouts (Fort Garry's Kona Stout was just under $6), it's a decent value. It also has an ABV of 7.9% so you will feel a bit warmth to it.

Santé!



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