Try?
Isn’t that a beautiful label? I sure think so. Take a gander at the bottle of Cricket Hill Brewery’s Paymaster Porter and see if you don’t agree. There, I knew you would. The fancy lettering really sets the stage for something special here. What’s that you ask? What’s the font? I’m sure I don’t know. Damn it, Jim, I’m a bruguru, not a calligrapher.
Anyway, you don’t even need to know how to read to enjoy a bottle of this tasty porter from New Jersey. Cricket Hill beers started showing up in my neighborhood beer store not so long ago, though for some reason a number of stores still don’t seem to have them.
The Cricket Hill Website says this about Paymaster Porter:
A dark brown Ale with major coffee flavors but not burnt aftertaste. The background is slightly chocolate with wonderful candied undertones. It finishes with a marvelous mixture of chocolate and coffee. A non-filtered ale that lives up to the gentle session beer reputation that our brewery has become well known for.
The beer has 5% alcohol by volume and 24 IBUs. It runs $8.99 a six-pack in my neck of the woods. Not bad to get it all the way down here in Atlanta. Do they get Sweetwater beer in New Jersey? I don’t think so.
Paymaster’s
Porter Ale pours to an inky black color with a thick creamy tan head
formation and an appetizing chocolate and licorice nose. Taking a sip, I
find the beer a bit thinner in body than I would like, but packs much in
the way of flavor: the beer is quite chocolaty with readily apparent notes
of coffee and especially licorice. In the finish, there’s a bit of grassy
hop character that combines with a bit or roastiness to dry the beer and
make it drinkable.
And drinkable it is; this is a decent everyday quaffing porter, a brown porter I think, and one I would surely buy again.
And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.
*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.
(B)=Bottled
(D)=Draft
