Ölbeat 241: Ôllenaut Suitsu Porter

Brewery: Õllenaut
Country: Estonia 
Style: Smoked Porter
Abv: 5,4 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is black with a medium tan head. Aroma has fireplace smoke, charcoal roast and some malty hints. Taste begins with intense burned smoke. Smoke and charcoaly roast take over with some dry bitterness. Towards the end malty and roasty bitterness gets mixed to the flavours. Aftertaste has roasted bitterness and malty sweetness.

Tasty smoked Porter. Strong smoke in the start rounds up nicely to roasted malts and bitterness. Fine brew from Ôllenaut once again.

Ölbeat

For some reason, I had to get a Pearl Jam song to be paired with this one. The calmness after the start encouraged me to choose a ballad instead of aggressive grunge. Probably a love song fits the beer, I don't know. The reason has vanished into...

Pearl Jam: Thin Air (YouTube)

From the 2000 album Binaural, the song was written by Stone Gossard.

Ölbeat 110: Beavertown Smog Rocket

Brewery: Beavertown
Country: England
Style: Smoked Porter
Abv: 5,4 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is black with a small quickly dissolving beige head. Aroma has heavily charred-roasted malts, sweet spiciness and a hint of smoke. Taste begins with charred bitterness and high carbonation. Gently smoked charcoaly malts take over with some semisweet malty flavour in the background. Hoppy bitterness gets through near the end. Aftertaste has smoky and charred bitterness.

Tasty smoked porter with charcoal bitterness playing the main part. The smoky flavour is present but not in any way stingy. Simple and enjoyable brew, no bad tricks nor ugly surprises.

Ölbeat

Inspired by the Beavertown can artwork by Nick Dwyer, I started looking for a song that fits the charcoaly smoked character of the beer. Found none. Looking at the can's futuristic and, yes, crazy picture I found a song that fits the gloomy mood of the dark beer:

Muse: Madness (YouTube)

From the 2012 album The 2nd Law, the song was written by Matt Bellamy.

Ölbeat 019: Teerenpeli Julmajuho

Brewery: Teerenpeli
Country: Finland
Style: Smoked Porter
Abv: 7,7 %
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'Cruel John' looks like this in Finland

Teerenpeli, founded in 1995, is one of the oldest still operating microbreweries in Finland. Situated in Lahti in Southern Finland, the brewery started with a 60-litre boiling kettle in the original Restaurant Teerenpeli. Nowadays the yearly production is 500.000 litres of brews, and there are six Teerenpeli restaurants in five cities. The brewery has many of its brews available around the country.

This beer was part of Alko's Finnish microbrewery craftbeer selection in spring 2016.

What about the beer?
Colour is very dark brown to black with medium beige head. Aroma has roasted malts with smoked meat. First bite is semi-dry roasted malts. Smoke starts mild but quickly explodes to a campfire flavour with meaty bite. Palate adds late bitter hops and some plum. There's sweet smoky maltiness in the aftertaste.

Altogether, the marriage of smoke and malt works and makes the experience great. High quality special stout from Lahti.

Ölbeat

Smoky tone has been an inspiration for many songs, so there's plenty to choose from. Despite the temptation to pick a classic heavy rock tune I chose this acoustic track:

Ed Sheeran: I See Fire (YouTube)

From the soundtrack of the 2013 film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, the was written by Ed Sheeran himself. Sheeran was asked by the film's director Peter Jackson to make a folk song to be played first during the closing credits. He wrote and recorded the song - almost the released version - during one day after watching the early screening. The lyrics of the song are attached to the dragon Smaug destroying Laketown in the end of the movie to the horror of Bilbo. I attached the song to Julmajuho not only because of similar theme but because it was the first beer from the brewery that made me see passion and inspiration - shortly: fire.