Port City Porter

Review Date 8/11/2024 By John Staradumsky

  Style: Porter   Brewery: Port City   Country: USA   State: Virginia   $ Per OZ: $.18 (B)   ABV: 7.2%

Let’s talk about robust porter! When you are talking about good old straight up porters, there really are two main versions of the style: brown and robust. Don’t say it, I know you’re thinking of imperial porter, too, but that is to porter as imperial stout is to stout. Really, another style entirely though with some common fundamentals. Baltic porters aren’t even ales, so are yet another beer named porter that is its own unique style.

Brown porter is the original porter, appearing mid-18^th century in London. It was the forerunner of stout, and is thought to have received its name from the fact it was popular with the porters of London. It is smooth and roasty but not so much of the latter as stout or robust porter.

Robust porter is generally fuller and roastier than brown porter, and usually more bitter. It fits in between brown porter and stout for those attributes. If all this sounds quite appetizing to you, I have a wonderful Robust Porter to recommend to you: Port City Porter from the Port City Brewing Company of Alexandria, Virginia.

I had never had this beer before, though I am very fond of this brewery. Port City beers are not sold in Georgia, but I did get a single from Half Time Beverage. I paid $3.49 for that single. Total Wine sells it for $12.99 a six-pack in their Charlotte, North Carolina store. The beer has an alcohol content of 7.2% by volume with 39 IBUs. My sample was stamped BOTTLED ON 03/05/24.

Port City Porter pours to a drank brownish black color with a medium sized head of creamy tan foam and a nose of dark roast and chocolate. Taking a sip, the beer is medium in body, just right for the style. It’s super chocolaty with dark chocolate and roast. That roast intensifies into the roasty (again with that word) bitter and hoppy bitter finish.

A truly excellent robust porter.

Glad I tried it?  T

Would I rebuy it??