Ölbeat 017: De Molen Tsarina Esra

Brewery: Brouwerij de Molen
Country: the Netherlands
Style: Imperial Porter
Abv: 11 %
@RateBeer

The Empress of imperial porters

Tsarina Esra is shortly described as being an imperial porter, which thanks to the fullness, the richness in flavour and the warming feeling makes it perfect for cold nights. In Finland the winter nights tend to be cold, much colder than the Dutch ones, so we didn't need long marketing speeches for this one.

What about the beer?
Colour is black with tiny vanishing beige head. Aroma has coffee, roasted malts and liquorice. Taste begins with gently-heavily roasted (not burnt) malts, soon accompanied by sweetish strong black coffee and salty dark chocolate. Palate adds late hoppy bitterness and some yeast. Aftertaste is sweet and warmly alcoholic.

If there was a porter brewed by the book without any impurities or defects, but still roughly challenging its drinker to a "wishing-this-would-never-end" experience, then this would be it. Truly a royal beer.

Ölbeat

For a counterpart of a beautifully tough beer, I chose this metal ballad by two by-then-veterans of heavy rock:

Lita Ford & Ozzy Osbourne: Close My Eyes Forever (YouTube)

From Lita Ford's 1988 album Lita, the track was written together by Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne. For a result of drinking, singing and jamming the song was a success - as the usual story goes. The voices of rough raspy Ford and gloomy high-toned Osbourne make it an unforgettable duet. The lyrics have been interpreted to be about i.e. being scared of falling in or losing love, but there's no confirmed background story. When I heard the song for the first time I was caught in the chorus: "If I close my eyes forever, will it all remain the same?" Closing my eyes while sipping Tsarina Esra immediately reminded me of the song: while tasting a majestic brew I was probably asking the question in my mind.

Brewer's Choice

Nightwish: Over the Hills and Far Away (YouTube)

From the self-titled 2001 EP, the track is a cover of Gary Moore's 1987 original from Wild Frontier. The Nightwish version is a symphonic metal update: the opera-singer-trained vocals of Tarja Turunen bring the singing more in front and the arrangement by songwriter-keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen is heavier than in the original. Otherwise the Nightwish version is loyal to Moore's story about a man who gets framed for a robbery he didn't commit. His alibi is spending the night with his love, who is his best friend's wife, but he doesn't want to reveal the secret and goes to jail instead. The song helped to lift Nightwish to international success, but the EP marked another turning point in the band's history: it was the last recording for bassist Sami Vänskä, who was replaced by Marco Hietala.