Peace Tree - Rye Porter (review)

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From: http://www.peacetreebrewing.com/our-beer/

Rye Porter: High quality pale, caramel, chocolate and Munich malts get a boost with roasted and chocolate rye. Dark and Light Belgian Candy Sugar is added to the kettle during the boil for smoothness and flavor. Belgian yeast gives off some fruity esters and the brew is delicately hopped so as to not overpower the malt flavors.

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The set-up:

When I bought this beer I was told simply, "They use Belgian yeast in everything." This made me wonder just how much the yeast could throw a malt heavy beer like a porter. The label finishes with "delicately hopped" hinting the finish might not be typically porter with its subtle earthy hops. Still I wondered if the yeast might somehow corrupt my beloved porter. Then my eyes wandered back to the big three letter word on the label "RYE." Again, I love my rye beers, but rye in a porter: were they serious? Rye generally lends a nice spice to golden blonde beer, not a dark malty porter. Let's not forget the candy sugar, very Belgian, and not porter-like at all. This would be interesting, if not confusing to my pallet!

The tasting:

I poured the dark rich porter into my standard shaker pint. It took a minute for the light caramel head to reduce itself to a thin layer on top of the coffee-dark porter. It looked like a porter, smelled like a porter... even tasted like a porter. Maybe I had dug my heels in too deep with all my thoughts about yeast and rye and candy sugar. This is a very well balanced porter on the front side. Where it goes from there is definitely different and definitely not bad. Instead of a nice subtle hop finish, I got just a lingering of the fruity esters of a yeasty hefeweizen.

The Conclusion:

It has been a while since I last had a porter, they are one of my favorites (especially in the winter). Generally I lean towards the Baltic style porters which can be completely different beasts. So there was only one thing I could do, I hit O.C. to have a "Taddy Porter" with lunch. It's one of those classic representations of a style: a great baseline to judge others. Sadly for Taddy it fell short. Compared to the Rye Porter it was watery and just lacked that flavor pop. I'm sure its trip across the Atlantic and time on the shelf did some damage to the flavor. The one thing it did have was just a slightly hopped aroma from the bottle.

If you are a porter fan in Iowa this is a "Must Buy." It is a full, rich, truthful porter. Its limited distribution is the only negative I can find. This is a case of fresh beer being the best option. I have two more beers from Peace Tree in my beer vault and I can't wait to taste how they came out. The bar has been set high and I hope it stays there. We need as many great breweries in Iowa as we can get.