Have you had Alaskan Brewing’s Smoked Porter? Pegs one end of the curve, IMHO, for smoky beers.
I find it smokier, and less balanced, than Aecht Schenkerla’s Marzen, if that provides some context.
My faves include Fuller’s Porter, Deschutes’s, Meantime’s London Porter, and in the Baltic treacle-fest sub category, Sinebrychoff. But damn, it’s good.
I’ll third them ----- they are basically my fall-back. And a much shorter drive to get most times.
Polygamy Porter - Why have just one?
Baltika #6 (their Baltic porter) is pretty common down here in Texas.
On the subject of porters in general, in homebrewing, there are 3 styles: brown, robust and baltic.
Brown porter is the original style- Fuller’s Porter from the UK is a good example.
Robust porter is a more American style, and is much heavier on the roasted malt and hops than the Brown porter style. Sierra Nevada and most craft US porters fall into this category. Polygamy Porter from Wasatch is a pretty well balanced example- you might like it.
Baltic porter is a porter, but brewed with lager yeast at lager temps; kind of like a really dark, malty lager in reality. Baltika or Zywiec are good examples.
It sounds like you don’t go for the robust style; I get that- I don’t really care for it either.
I like Ballast Point’s Victory At Sea a lot- it’s a vanilla Imperial porter, and it’s well-balanced, so it’s not overly malty, hoppy or roasty. Plus the label is very cool.
Deschuttes and Great Lakes are awesome! I just wish Great Lakes would begin shipping down here to the St. Louis area; I had it on a trip to Columbus, OH, and other than my morning coffee, I don’t think I drank much of anything else while I was there. Good times!
Agree on all points including the label. Ballast Point somehow caught my eye on Facebook a while back and I see their posts pretty regularly. Haven’t tried one of their offerings I didn’t love yet.
Brewed in Utah. Anyone know the %ABV?
My favorite is Bell’s Porter, but I can’t afford $12 a six-pack. I’ll try the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The brewery tour was a bit of a wet cracker yesterday. One nice place but small with 4 good beers but nothing great and sadly the only porter was a seasonal spiced porter. It had hot peppers and cinnamon. Good but not great. The pale ale was good but not as good as Bass to me, which is my default ale.
Only went to one more brewery and it was horribly overcrowded and I gave up quickly.
No, I haven’t. Alaskan does good stuff usually, so I’ll have to give it a try.
I’ve started using the Next Glass app on my iPhone. While I can’t take notes in detail, it does allow me to rate the beers I’ve tried, and then uses that to make guesses about which beers I might like. It can use a picture of a bottle to find information about a beer, which makes it useful when shopping. Plus, my wife has the same app with my login, so she can find things I’ll like when she’s doing the shopping.
I’m still waiting to see just how accurate the predictions will be, but it seems to put things in the right ballpark.
Where are you that your are getting Southern Tier Brewery beers? They are probably best known for their IPAs, anyway. My favorite local porter is Cooperstown Brewing Company’s Benchwarmer Porter, although I haven’t had it since the brewery changed hands. Might be hard to find, though. Samuel Smith is my usual porter.
I don’t know what’s available to the OP. To me, an “okay” porter/stout is pretty good, but kind of generic, and I appreciate ones that taste distinctive. Anchor, Black Butte, and Samuel Smith are pretty good. I am not a huge fan of Sierra’s either. It’s fine, just not my favorite. Also some more that I doubt you get in NJ.
There isn’t one. If a brand has two, the “heavier” one will be the stout, but otherwise it’s mostly how they want to market it. Even a given pale ale can be more aggressively hopped than an IPA.
VooDoo Brewery has a fantastic Imperial stout, Big Black VooDoo Daddy, if you are able to handle a 12.5% pour. It is really tasty.
Argh I am embarrassed to have been passing along marketing babble as fact. :smack:
Nonetheless, I stick by the rest: porters are usually interesting yet true to style, whereas stouts, in the US at least, are becoming an arms race. 
What about Samuel Adams strongest beer…the Utopia?
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=sam+adams+strongest+beer&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVoDeEP1UUY0AZcwlnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0dmRibmhwBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwMV8x?p=james+may+oz+strongest+beer&tnr=21&vid=EC2DEDBEEA1D404BECF8EC2DEDBEEA1D404BECF8&l=126&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608039985172317482%26pid%3D15.1&sigi=11rhrn3dp&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DhzTob_W5wkw&sigr=11bb91clq&tt=b&tit=FULL+SCENE+-+James+May%26%2339%3Bs+most+WEIRDEST+LAUGH+EVER!!!!&sigt=11pi1u1dr&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Djames%2Bmay%2Boz%2Bstrongest%2Bbeer%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-002%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=137lrj4t6&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002
I like both Sierra Nevada and Anchor Steam porters. Both a bit different and both really good.
FWIW: back when I was having kids, I always thought that Porter would be my top nomination for a boy’s name.
Not a fan of high octane beers. If that’s what I want to drink, I’ll have a boilermaker thankyouverymuch.
Once you’re over about 6% alcohol, the appeal goes down for me. Be a real brewer, and get the right balance and a great 4% alcohol beer or less.
I understand. You wouldn’t want to go crazy-strong like Coors Light (NB: 4.2%).
Utopias is great if: someone else is buying, and if you really like Madeira. Seriously, that’s what it most tasted like to me, a good Bual: Rich, caramel-y, hint of smoke, full, not super sweet, and nothing at all like beer. Great stuff, but again, only if someone else is paying for it, IMHO.
Porters, especially some of the Baltic ones, taste a lot sweeter to me. Licorice-y too, which isn’t a flavor I found in Utopias, and not one I often find in some Imperial Stouts that I’d confuse with Porters otherwise.
China Guy, I’d normally agree with you on full-throttle alcohol beers—the bourbon barrel, 13% stuff really needs to go away, IMHO—but some of them really, really disguise the EtOH. Have you had Samischlaus Helles, Avery’s Maharajah, or St. Bernardus Abt 12? Any of those is comfortably above 8.5%, and all of them went down like refreshing cider. “This is delicious! Hey, why am I buzzed already? (Picks up bottle) Holy crap, it’s got how much alcohol in it?!” Especially the Samischlaus; I was really expecting another type of experience when I tried it and its darker more traditional cousin the first time
