Ohio’s Portside Brewery may be gone, but there beer lives on: until we drink it all, anyway. The brewery closed about a year ago as I type, around September of 2017. I have a few bottles of their beer left in my stash, and one of them I’m here to tell you about tonight: Big Chuck Barley Wine Ale.

The bottle label says:

Brewed in honor of Cleveland television legend “Big Chuck” Schodowski, this is high gravity barley wine ale with a prominent malt backbone.

The label gives an alcohol content of 11.7% by volume. I am not sure how old my bottle is but it does have at least two years of age on it.

Portside Big Chuck Barleywine pours to a murky mahogany color with a medium head of creamy tan foam and a big boozy malt and raisin nose. Taking a sip, the beer is full in body and thick with caramel and fresh baked bready malt and dark raisiny notes. Spice cake and a hint of chocolate come through, and the beer finishes warm with alcohol as one might expect.

A shame this beer is no longer being brewed, but I’m glad I got to try it while it was a thing.

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