Come on, people now, Smile on your porter: Perpetually Electrified by Young Blood Beer Company

Everybody get together
Try to drink smoke beer right now

Last summer Young Blood Beer Company announced they'd be opening a brewery over here on the east side of Madison on Stoughton Road just south of Buckeye Road. The announcement was quickly followed by the caveat that there would be no tasting room nor beer garden at the brewery. This news was met with loud groans that reverberated throughout the Elvehjem neighborhood from Cuco's Mexican Restaurant who were briefly excited at the prospect of hordes of hungry drunks only a block or so away.

And so, while a new Young Blood drinking establishment did not emerge, it seems that you can quaff their brews more readily at home as this brewery has greatly expanded their ability to put cans of beer on store shelves. Well, it seems like it to me, anyway, when I go to liquor stores.

I was writing about a beer from the shiny new Starkweather Brewing Company yesterday and came across a quote from their co-owner and brewmaster, Peter Schroder during my extensive research: "We’re not the young hipsters just doing sours." This sums up my impressions of Young Blood fairly well. Not that they only make sours, but their portfolio has a lot of fruited sours in addition to other trendy brews like pastry stouts and IPAs. So I was happy to find out that they had brewed a smoked porter.

With the fate of Karben4's smoked porter, Night Call, unclear (see here), another such beer seemed in order. I don't see Alaskan Smoked Porter around much and so perhaps Perpetually Electrified could take the edge off of Night Call's demise, should it come, and help fill the smoked porter gap. Alaskan Smoked Porter is brewed with malt smoked over alder wood flames and I don't know what Karben4 uses/used for Night Call. Young Blood went alt Schule and used beechwood smoked malt for Perpetually Electrified which is the traditional choice for German rauchbier.

I did my level best to get the fizz flowing with my pour and it paid off in spades with a big, tan head of loose foam on top of beer so dark and impervious to light that H.P. Lovecraft would have heartily approved. When my eyes were finally able to penetrate the Stygian gloom in my glass, I saw a liquid of a deep brown hue, with a faint red tint. As best I could ascertain, it was clear. The beer smelled of a curious combination of the sweet and the smokey. First, there was a scent like raisin which was followed by one of what I think of as pan-berry. Not any one particular berry, just berries generally. A little honeyed sweetness rounded out that element. Next I found a little coffee underneath a moderately smokey scent.

Despite the big head, my tongue tasted a less than large amount of fizziness. That generic berry flavor came first on my initial sip followed by a goodly dose of smoke. The restrained carbonation made for a rather smooth mouthfeel. After swallowing, some sweetness lingered until coffee flavors took over. A herbal hoppy taste soon followed giving a mild bitterness and just a touch of dryness.

This beer was...not bad. With American porters, I expect the emphasis to be on coffee, bitter chocolate, and that fuliginous flavor from black patent malt or whatever grain yields that ashy kind of taste and for fruity elements to be in the background. Perpetually Electrified seems to have that reversed, not unlike a recent Baltic porter. "Maybe it's meant to be more of an English porter," I figured. But I'd expect an English version to be less fruity and more nutty and earthy tasting. Or am I wrong on that? Now I am going to have to seek out a porter from its homeland for comparison.

Perhaps the relative strengths of the flavors has to do with the fact that this is a big porter. It is 8.1% A.B.V., after all. Regardless, I wish the fruity flavors had more of a supporting role here. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the smoke flavor. It wasn't as strong as that of a Schlenkerla rauchbier, but it wasn't just a wallflower either. Hopefully the folks at Young Blood will try this brew again but tweak the formula.

Junk food pairing: hearty, smokey beers pair well with meat so a bag of Old Dutch's Ripples BBQ Pulled Pork Wrap potato chips is the way to go.