St Peter's Honey Porter

Origin: England

Type: Porter

Color: Light brown

Alcohol content: 4.5%

Recommended serving temperature: 7ºC/45ºF

Brewery: St. Peter's Brewery

Webpage: http://www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk/our-beer-range/bottled-beers/

I have decided to write today about a funny little porter I tried the other day which quite impressed me, St. Peter's Honey Porter.

It was bought by my girlfriend at a local beer store and I have to admit, I did not have a big faith in it myself. I guess the fact that I am not a big honey fan may have been a factor there.

Despite that, after she opened the bottle and let me try it, I wound up stealing half from her and found myself wanting to write about it.

This porter is light brown in color, and pours with little to non-existent foam.

When you open the bottle and pour, the smell of this beer practically fills the room.

As you would come to expect from a beer called Honey Porter, the main smells are honey related. You can feel the flowers, herbs and resin quite clearly. However, there is also a creamy smell in there which kind of reminds you of liquor and gives the whole thing an additional rich thickness.

The taste, however does not correspond exactly to what you would expect from the name and the smell.

You would expect the same flavors of flower, herbs and resin to appear, giving you the feeling that you are indeed drinking honey. Instead, you perceive the creaminess more than you do the rest.

The flavor is primarily creamy and sweet with a little bit of toasted malts. In fact the flower and herbs are left here in the background and do not really influence the taste all that much at the beginning. This mix of flavors made me think more of creamy dark chocolate or a rich cup of hot cocoa, than honey.

This is weird in a honey porter, but I personally enjoy it. It is like being taken to the emergency room with the prospect of an appendectomy and getting off with just getting felt up by a random doctor (sometimes, if you are lucky, a young and hot one) and a lollypop.

Like hot cocoa, this beer feels pretty bitter as you swallow, but it still has an additional surprise in store, finally giving you what the name announces in the taste as well as in the aroma as this bitterness turns into a resiny honey like after taste.

This, I must confess, was not my favorite thing about the beer. However, I cannot help but feel the beer improved the taste of the honey. Or in other words, should I ever feel the need to have some honey, I would have it in this beer.

The truth is this is a very interesting beer, thick, creamy and sweet, perfect to enjoy at home after dinner on a cold night with some cookies. And that is just if you are not a honey fan. Imagine if you are.