I normally don't feel the need to sniff a beer too often, but for some reason with a name like 'flying dog', I felt the need to sniff the bottle's bunghole a couple of times until I got familiar with the scent.
Oddly enough, it had a different scent each time. The first whiff, all I got was a nice brown beer scent. If it didn't say Porter on the label, I wouldn't have known. The second whiff I got a bit of hops and other things. It wasn't until the third sniff that I thought, "Oh yes, that is a porter all right."
I took a sip. It went down easy. Too easy. I'd been hoping to get a good taste before it went down, but it's like this beer had a mind of its own. It's like this thing has a mind of its own. "Hold on one damn minute!" I said. "I can't review you if you won't hold still." The bottle puckered up with me while I tried to down another swig. Now that I've gotten a feel for how this beer behaves, I think I'm starting to tame it. The flavors are starting to settle down for a little bit in my mouth before they run further into me, kamikaze style. It's not your typical dark, deep, bitter porter. This one's milder in those respects, but more flavorful. It takes a little while for the flavors to kick in though, so this is one that you might want to nurse for a while. But the longer you nurse it, the more bitter it gets. It's like the hops slowly coat your mouth while you're distracted by the beer running down your throat.
Most porters that I've tried are either chocolate stouts wearing porter clothing, or a cold, dark, strong beer that'll fill you up and keep you warm on a cold winter's night. This one is neither, although I suspect it can pull off the second role if it wants to. It's a tricky little brew. Versatile. Creative. I don't trust it.
But I like it.
I'm really not sure what I expected out of this one. I've heard good things about this company, but I've never tried this one before and anything else I've had by them was so long ago that I can barely remember it.
The artwork on this thing is weird. Not like 'I'm trying to be quirky and gimmicky' weird, no, it's more like 'I'm trying to combine the grittiness of 80s schlock cinema with the trippiness of 60s and 70s schlock avant garde and throw in a dash of 90s grunge while we're at it'. This bottle art is an approximation of four decades worth of drug use, and it's made now in the 2010s. A part of me wonders when the illustration was done, and if it was done in the 90s, or if it predicted the 90s grunge movement.
I suspect they were trying to be quirky and gimmicky too. But that's why they hired the artist they did. Ralph Steadman is the artist, and he's best known for doing illustrations for Hunter S. Thompson. And that was a man who knew his mind-altering substances.
But all labels aside, this is good beer. No shit. Not the best porter I've ever had, but the best one I've had that wasn't trying too hard to be dark and strong.
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