Stewart's Wheat Porter

I suppose I'm pretty fortunate that there's so many brewpubs near my house. Dogfish Head is the biggest, and at only an hour away it's well worth the trip. Still it's not practical to head down to Rehobeth whenever I want a fresh brew, so when I need to stay closer to home, both Iron Hill and Stewart's are less than 15 minutes away. Stewart's has won numerous awards at the Great American Beer Festival, and the World Beer Cup, including a gold medal from each for their Windblown Blonde Kölsch, which Dan tasted.

I chose the Wheat Porter as I was in the mood for something darker. This beer was labeled as an unfiltered American-style porter brewed with wheat, and weighed in at 5.4% ABV.

The beer arrived in a standard pint glass, and appeared nearly black in color. It had next to no head, just a mild dusting of bubbles on the top, but the head it did have was a nice mocha color. Despite the lack of head, there was some lacing at first, but by halfway through this had disappeared entirely.

The aroma was nice and malty with a bit of a bready quality to it. The yeast was also fairly dominant in the smell, but not in a way that indicated any sort of strong bitterness. I also detected a bit of nuttiness, possibly almonds in the smell. All in all, there was a earthen, musky quality to the smell, which I enjoyed thoroughly.

The taste was of sweet chocolate at first on the tip of the tongue, and had a nice round bitterness at the back of the mouth. There was an ethereal hint of cherry, as if the flavor didn't actually exist, but simply felt as if it was there. A touch of roasted grain was also present. I didn't notice much wheat in the flavor, except right in the middle of the tongue. It had a similar quality to Sam Adam's Cherry Wheat, but with a darker roast. There were two things I did have against this beer though. First was that I noticed a bit of a metallic taste to the beer, which I attributed to the water we have in this state. The second thing was that it just seemed too sweet, the bitterness didn't balance out the sweet chocolaty flavor.

The mouthfeel was crisp and highly carbonated. It had a nice full body, and was refreshing without being watery. It was both smooth and creamy. In addition it left a nice coating on the mouth. I definitely felt that this was the strongest area for the beer, and in fact may have been the best feeling beer I've ever tried.

Overall, I thought the drinkability was fairly high, but I could definitely see myself getting sick of it if I had too many. The sweetness really did seem like too much. Still, it was a reasonably good beer, and absolutely was worth trying.

- Adam