Stone Chipotle Smoked Porter

Brewed by Stone Brewing Co.
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Escondido, California USA

Don’t get a ton of nose. Smoked malts, dark chocolate, and a hint of earthy pepper notes. Dark brown pour with a thin beige head and wonderful lace. Flavors of smoke and chocolate, leather, dough, roast, and medium spicy pepper that chills way back on the palate and adds an interesting dry/spice in the finish. A great example of how heat can be used well in a beer. Solid.

Bought a 1L growler when at the Stone Brewery 11Jul2007. Pours dark brown in color with low carbonation. Nice roasted malt aroma. Decent cocoa notes with slight smokiness and very little chipotle flavor. Moderate burnt grain finish stays on the back of the palate.

On cask at the linkery in San Diego.... Deep brown kind of cloudy in color with a thick tan head... Reddish tint... Aroma is smokey, faint hint of spice... Flavor is slightly smokey and malty initially, but finish is outrageously spicy, just annihilates your palate... Really interesting beer, wouldn’t drink more than one though.

On tap at Ashley’s - very dark brown with a trace of white-brown head. Aroma is subtle, mostly roasted malt and smoke. Solid porter presence of roasted malt and chocolate in the flavor, under smokiness and a little pepper kick. The peppers mainly manifest themselves in a smoky-hot, warming, long-lasting aftertaste. I didn’t think it was that spicy until I took a big slug of it at the end, and that got my attention. A surprisingly successful blend.

Growler (one liter) from brewery. Pours a Pepsi caramel black color with a thick and creamy beige head that lasts for a while, leaving great lacing. Aroma is on the subtle side -- only slights notes of roasted malt with some smoky pepper. Flavor starts out smooth with just a little smoke and the roasted malts at first. But the pepper quickly kicks in, the spiciness builds, and then lingers. Medium body and dry finish. Lingering spiciness in the finish which I quite like. This beer makes sense to me -- add the delicious smoked jalapenos to the already smoked beer. This is not a novelty beer, and actually quite well done. Call me crazy, but I wouldn’t mind if it had a bit more of the chipotle.

Sampled from a 1 L growler 24 hours after being filled, May 2007
Still very well carbonated, it pours with an almost three-finger thick, frothy, pale brown colored head that sits atop a brilliantly clear, very dark brownish amber colored brew that you can just see through if you hold it up to a bright light. Quite malty smelling with notes of toasted malt, chocolate, browned biscuits, crusty-browned French bread and blackened raisins. I don’t really notice the chipotlé peppers in the nose at all.

There is a medium full thickness to this brew. Lightly phenolic with notes of woody smoke and perhaps a wisp of burnt plastic. I don’t really get the chipotle aspect; there is something that is almost plastic-like, perhaps leaning towards hot, but I am not sure this is very spicy at all. On the other hand I know that this was subtle, I am a chilé head and I know that chilé beers that are noticeable to others have only been subtle to my taste buds. I like the mix of burnt flavors, smoke and dark fruit notes here. Flavors of toasted malt, burnt grain, roasted coffee beans, dark chocolate.

Ok, there is something here in the finish which I would attribute to the chipotle chilés, but without knowing about it a priori, I would never have guessed there was something different about this beer.

Stone, the next time you make this you need to put in a lot more chipotlé peppers, this could work really well if properly spiced. I have added ½ a dried chipotlé at bottling time to each 22oz bottle of smoked porter and that is definitely way too much, but something like a ratio of 1/16th to 1/8th of a chipotle per 22oz bottle would probably be nicely spicy. In the end, I did notice, if you drink a lot more other beers, you can finally taste the chipotle flavors and not unconsciously think that you got ripped off by the Stone guys ;-)

Draft at the brewery. Smells a bit more smoky than the regular smoked porter. The flavor is very similar to the regular smoked porter with hints of chipotle. I would have liked more chipotle to separate it from its parent.

Growler: Pours a dark brown almost black with a slight tan head. The aroma is very subdued. The aroma is like the standard Smoked Porter. The initial taste is like the stand Smoked Porter but the finish is where the pepper makes it’s presence known. It’s subtle but you can sense the pepper character. The palate is good but not exceptional showing a soft character and limited mouth feel. That’s not bad. The overall taste is good and fits for the original style.