Feb 4, 2016

Sweetwater Brewing Pulled Porter

Sweetwater Brewing Dank Tank series is the company’s line of limited brews that allows them to experiment and mess around with ingredients. The brewery has released some outstanding offerings in that series, but much like the Tropical Stout from Flying Dog that I reviewed the other day, not every product is going to be for every beer fan. That said, Pulled Porter still has some exciting elements within it’s dark, smokey depths.

This 7.7% ABV porter uses a base of smoked malt that was developed… well, let’s let the brewery describe the process:

Over the course of three days, the crew from Fox Bros. smoked one ton of malt on their wood-burning Lang smokers, using nothing but hickory. Each batch of malt smoked for 5 hours at 250 degrees to get a nice toast and plenty of good smoke without burning it. To add that extra bit of oink, we tossed racks of bacon in the smoker to infuse the smoking malt.

Sweetwater Facebook Page

The result? Well, the bacon infused malt certainly gives the brew an interesting pork belly like character. The porter isn’t overly smokey, at least not in the terms of a traditional Rauchbier, but it is a bit smokier than most examples of the style. The aroma was a bit tame, but super-fans of bacon will rejoice in the meaty flavor. Pulled Porter is without a doubt a uniquely flavored brew that falls right in line with the other experimental releases of the company’s Dank Tank series.

Some will like it. Some won’t. As a fan of innovative brews in general, I’d recommend that you try it at least once.

This is a review of a promotional sample.