Review: Flying Dog Road Dog Porter

Can someone do me a favor and check the thermostat in Hell? I’m thinking you’ll find it a few degrees colder down there.

Oliver Gray likes a porter? Really likes a porter?

Yes, he does. It could be the lightness of the flavors in a beer so dark. It could be the subtle hopping backed by the well balanced malts. It could be the kickass Hunter S. Thompson quote on the bottle. It could just be that Flying Dog knows what the hell they’re doing when they make a porter.

Whatever it is, I’m glad they’re doing it.

My experience with porters has been mixed and confusing. Given its English purebreeding and full-bodied flavor, an outsider might see this beer style as an ideal Oliverbräu. But for some reason, I’ve always been put off by malt heavy beers. Their flavors are often too heavy (or too sweet), reminding me more of a liquefied marble rye than a beer.

I’ve tried many a porter in an attempt to find something I enjoy. Commercial to small batch microbrew; I never seem to find anything that wets my proverbial whistle like well done pale ales. I’ve flirted with stouts (a variation of a porter, for your edumackayshun), even dated one for a while. I even once tried Port in an attempt to salvage the romance, until I realized that it was something entirely different.

I never found common ground with porter. We fought too much and danced too little. I had to end the relationship.

It’s not you, porter, it’s me.

Then along comes Road Dog Porter, wearing tight-fitting label art and swearing like a sailor. She poured into the glass black, sassy, smooth. Her hair was white with a hint of brown, like she’d been playing in the mud. Her kiss was sweet and silky, wet and complicated. It reminded me of a thunderstorm in a big city.

She’s not the kind of beer I’d normally go for, but there was something dangerous in those bubbles, and that danger left me paralyzed. I could tell she didn’t care about me but it didn’t matter, it was a wild ride from bottle to glass to stomach; a ride I won’t soon forget.

As Hunter S. Thompson says, “Good people drink good beer.”

Are you a good person? Then drink this beer.

9 out of 10.