Brewery: Pine Ridge Brewery
Country: Sweden
Size: 33cl
ABV: 8%
Price: 31kr
Systembolaget: 32965
So then I need to start with a public service warning. Do not, and I repeat DO NOT, try and search for “hairy beaver” on Google. My innocent search for more information about this beer took me somewhere completely unexpected. Those pictures still haunt my dreams. Urgh. Anyway, back to the beer. Why did I order this beer for the tasting? Two reasons actually. I thought the smoked vanilla aspect sounded rather interesting and also I’m also sometimes a bit childish and I thought the name was rather rude. What are you gonna do? I had never heard of Pine Ridge before so i decided to roll the dice and give it a go. If I’m honest, I wasn’t too impressed though.
The porter was very deep brown with a slight ruby hint and produced a light cream coloured head that died after a disappointingly short time. After a quick swirl it was evident that it had quite a thin body. I expected more for an 8% porter. The main aroma was of a light smokiness followed closely by meat and dark woody malts. The vanilla was there but as a minor characteristic along with slightly damp cardboard. The taste was, for want of a better word, boring. Bland would fit also. It was like thin, roasted malt water. The smokiness was there though but the dark malt came through rather weakly. The vanilla wasn’t hardly there in the tasting and the small roasted malt aftertaste ended rather suddenly. I found it quite drying on the palate as well.
I don’t know if my expectations were too high with this beer but it was a major letdown. I like to have a good body to my dark beers and I feel like this was severely lacking. It is how I would expect a 3.5% porter to taste. I think I expected a lot more power from this beer but it just never appeared. It was like a disappintment in a bottle. There is no way I could honestly recommend this to anyone when there are so many better porters on the market. In my humble opinion, this was crap. You should avoid this as much as random picture of hairy bushes on unintended Google searches.