Keg Talks: Alaskan Brewing Smoked Porter

Dave Martin here with Alaskan Brewing Company. Let’s talk about the Great American Beer Festival’s most winningest beer in history. Smoked Porter. Smoked Porter first came out in 1991, and since then, we’ve released it every single year. What’s unique about this beer is that we put the year on every single label because we vintage this beer and we’ll talk about that in a little bit.

but first, I want to talk about this year’s 2024 smoked porter because I’m getting a face full of smoke.

Who? Holy smokes. Just a little bit. All right, so this is fresh 2024 Smoked Porter.

So, every year in January, we smoke our own malt, and we’re using one of our specialty malts that we use quite often in our brewery. But we have our own smokehouse that we purchased from a local smokery many years ago. So, we smoke all this by hand on Alder. Now, Alder is important because it’s ubiquitous in southeast Alaska and it’s got some heavy cultural significance as well. And it’s the main wood that you smoke salmon on.
So, it was important to us that we used alder smoke. In addition, alder is very delicate.

It doesn’t have these really harsh burnt characters that are wood like Hickory does. So, it lends a really balanced smoke character to this beer. So this is a fresh, Smoked Porter, bottled days ago.

And so, what you’re going to get is a very heavy smoke character compared to what it will be when we age it a little bit longer. So nice smoke, a nice coffee roast, a little chocolate and a little bit of a tanginess as well from the smoke. A fresh smoked porter is very in-your-face. It’s got a lot of strong flavors to it. The smoke is evident.

It’s very balanced, but it’s also very robust, very strong. Man, that smoke just comes through really nice.

Bacon bits smoked ham. It’s dinner. Now, like I said, we vintage this brand.

So, every year we put the date on there and this is a beer that ages very gracefully. Now usually, beer is meant to be drank fresh. That’s my opinion. All beer should be drank as fresh as you possibly can. It’s only going to get worse over time, except for a couple: Dark beers in particular.

Smoked beers especially age really gracefully. And instead of getting these really oxidized papery cardboard flavors, you get a lot more nuance. The smoke in this is going to fade a little bit, but you’re going to get a little bit more dark fruit, fig and plum character that just changes it, but in a very nice way. So if you want to age this beer perfectly: If you can temperature control 50 to 55 degrees, that would be excellent.

I have a garage, and that works well enough for me sometimes, too.

So, our smoked porter comes in at six and a half percent. So, it’s not over the top boozy. And you can enjoy a couple of these. and this comes out every fall as a part of our pilot series. And like many dark beers with this much complexity that has this much flavor to it, you probably want to pull this out of the fridge, let it warm up a little bit, and then enjoy it.
Try not to drink this straight out of the fridge or some of these flavors are just going to be a little too muted So now to really see how Smoked Porter changes over time.

I have a 2021 vintage, so this is three years old. right So I’m going to start with a fresh one. Just see what’s different. Fresh one is quite smoky, right?

There’s a lot of layers on there, but the smoke is pretty dominant. Who! Who! Who! Dark fruit, baby.

So, the smoke has faded quite a bit. It’s still present. It’s still there. But really, the maltiness and the sweetness has started to come forward. Tasting the fresh version again.
It’s a little bit tangy. It’s a little bit smoky, but it’s still very, very drinkable. Very nice so three-year-old Porter. Holy smokes, man.

Dark fruit and plums.

That is coming through really nicely, but it’s not overly – it’s not overly sweet, it’s not cloying. It’s really well-balanced. The smoke adds just a little bit of depth, but it’s not in your face. You know, the smoke is going to fall back a little bit as it ages. It acts as a really nice preservative, which is one of the reasons why these beers aged so nicely.
And it really let the maltiness really shine through. And our even our yeast profile is starting to come through a little bit more You’re getting some fruitier esters from this. It’s really good. So, for me, I’m happy with both of these. I love a fresh smoked porter I love and aged smoked porter.

Ideally for me, between one and three years. Four years is perfect. So go grab yourself a 2024. Sit on it for a couple of years. Crack that open Thanksgiving 2026 You’ll thank me later.

Cheers. Now, I thought that was a pretty good send off, but I forgot that I have some fresh smoked salmon that came off the smoker a couple of minutes ago. Alder smoked salmon with Alder smoked porter. Let’s see how these two do together. There is no finer combination. My God. Is this as much fun for you as it is for me?

Launch Your 6 Figure Online Business

PLR Pipeline Special – Special 99 Cent PLR Package Offer | Spring PLR Blowout

Views: 0