Have I had beer from Iceland before? I’m pretty sure I have. I know I’ve read about them in Michael Jackson’s World Guide to Beer many moons ago. As it stands, though, you wouldn’t find any reviews of Icelandic beer here on Bruguru.com-that is, not until today. I guess they’re just really hard to find, so special thanks to the one and only Rob Frye for sending me a bottle of Einstök Icelandic Toasted Porter.

Iceland is a fairly remote place, and its Einstok brewery even more so. The brewery is located in Akureyri, about 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle. Despite this, it’s one of the most populous cities in Iceland. Hey, they do have a brewery after all. Einstök Icelandic Toasted Porter is a coffee porter, made with coffee roasted locally.

From the bottle label:

With clear notes of coffee and dark chocolate, this porter is roasty and rich, offering a medium body that is robust, yet smooth on the palate. Toasted and chocolate malts give it a sinister black color, but it’s easy-to-drink taste will have you believing that there’s no more need to be afraid of the dark. DREKKTU, SIGRADU, ENDURTAKTU!

I don’t speak Icelandic, but DREKKTU, SIGRADU, ENDURTAKTU! Seems to mean drink, overcome, repeat. Anyway, Einstok Icelandic Toasted Porter is made with the following ingredients per the website:

Lager malt, munich malt, chocolate malt, bavarian hops, with the slight addition of authentic icelandic roasted coffee.

Einstök Icelandic Toasted Porter has an alcohol content of 6% by volume and Total Wine sells it for $12.99 a six-pack (11.2 ounce bottles), though not here in Georgia.

Einstök Icelandic Toasted Porter pours to a jet black though not fully opaque color with a medium creamy tan head and a truly intense nose of black roasted malt and dark roasty espresso. Taking a sip, the beer has a medium body and smooth, slightly creamy body with deep dark notes of intense dark toasted coffee with hints of caramel, bittersweet chocolate and faint licorice. It’s really the coffeeish notes that prevail, though, bitter and roasty and leading into an even more bitter and roasty finish.

Extremely impressive! This beer is a bit expensive, sure, but it came all the way from a remote area from Iceland and is truly amazing. It’s a beer that certainly justifies the price, and one I’ll be on the lookout for, for sure. It’s definitely a beer I’ll drekktu, sigradu, and endurtaktu. Won’t you as well?