- Product Reviewed: Saku Porter
- Brewed By: Saku Brewing; Estonia
- Form Reviewed: Bottle; 6.6% ABV
- Style: Baltic Porter
- Originally posted to Usenet: January 12, 2000
- Added to the Tasting Notebook: January 18, 2000
Initial Impressions:
The Baltic porters have been creating a buzz on the west coast for at least 18 months. I've been studiously avoiding them for reasons unknown. In late December I found myself in the Stumbling Monk on Olive Way in Seattle buying a couple bottles of Fullers Vintage Ale for an rfdber in Eugene. Since I'm rarely targeted in my beer store purchases, I accumulated several other beers, including five of the Baltic porters. These five were Saku (Estonia), Carnegie's Stark (Sweden), Sinebrychoff (Finland), Okocim (Poland), and Zywiec (Poland).
I sampled the beers, roughly, in ascending order of strength; I further divided the tasting into two days. I started day 1 with the Saku.
Saku pours a deep garnet in the glass, not completely black opaque. This makes for an attractive pint. It's fairly gassy, throwing off a fluffy light tan head.
Nose:
A light, yet rich, maltiness dominates the aroma, with subtle oxidation hints in the background, including some sherry and a bit of cardboard.
Flavor:
This beer opens malty, followed by coffee notes which are truncated by a roasty smokiness (this does not seem to be a smoked malt smokiness like a Hugh Baird or a Bamberg, but a smokiness occasionally given off by the roasting process). This quick smoke note becomes buried under another round of malt, this time with toffee flavors. Saku finishes dry, with an earthy graininess in the finish, remniscient of chewing on malt kernels.
Final Analysis:
A beautifully nuanced, layered beer, unlike any porter I've had to this point. The earthy graininess at the end was unexpected, and didn't mesh well with the rest of the beer. Nevertheless, a delightful, sophisticated beer.
Rating:
(Excellent on my 5-star scale)
