Tyranena Benjis Chipotle Smoked Imperial Porter

Brewed by Tyranena Brewing
Style: Imperial/Strong Porter
Lake Mills, Wisconsin USA

GTMW 2009: Reddish brown hue with a creamy tan head and good lace. The aroma is a wonderful combination of dusty milk chocolate, walnut and toasted malts versus chipotle pepper, herbs and anise spice. Some coffee and earthy yeast esters found roaming about as well. The taste starts with a malty chocolate and coffee character before that spice notes comes around to add complexity and uniqueness. Dusty and nutty upon the finish will little note of smoke. The mouth feel is soft and lush but as often is the case with porters, a tad thin-bodied and short. Overall a well done brew but would have liked to see just a bit more chipotle character (the same issue I had with most of the "pepper" brews two weeks earlier at the Michigan Brewers fest)

gtmw09...almost black pour with dark brown edges and a fluffy tan head.... aroma had bitter chocolate and roastiness. chipotle barely noticeable if at all... sweet chocolate and roasted malt flavors. medium mouthfeel and average carbonation.

GTMW beer #5 of 42! Pours black with a very thick, brownish head in my narrow taster glass. Can’t get much smell over the head; I do get a slight whiff of chipotle. Taste definitely shows a roasted, smoked chipotle character. Some sweet porter with a slight taste of stouty astringency. As a chile-head, I give it high marks for being so well-done.

On tap at GTMW 2009
My second sample from the guys in Lake Mills was this unusually spiced porter. The chipotle is present but you really have to take your time to pick it out. The only time it really shines is in the finish; here it is the last thing to be washed away by a good rinse. Overall I am impressed with the balance they achieved. Unlike some pepper spiced beers it is not over the top.

Aroma / Appearance - The appearance is fairly standard for a porter - a thin mocha head over a blackish brown body. The nose gives away some hints of the content but is really subdued. The chipotle does not hit you as aggressively as one might expect.

Flavor / Palate - Other than the peppery finish that lingers for a few minutes this is a run of the mill strong porter. The base beer makes a good foundation for this experiment which hopefully will be released again. It is not often you run across spiced beers which are not imbalanced in some way or another. This is one of them.

On tap. At some point some brewer is going to make a "chipotle" beer where you can taste the chipotle itself. There are elements of smoke in this but nothing very strong. There is a decent amount of chocolate in this and the chipotle would of been a nice accent, if you could taste it, but you cant. So this is nothing other than an strong porter, nice but not special.

Rich smokiness, lots of robust roasted malts, notes of gauze and bandaid (yummy!). Typical porter body. Very dark brown, nearly opaque. From growler.

Black pour tall thick well laced tan head Light dry hoppy aroma was nicely cut over chocolate a hint of smoke and touch of pepper. Well coated pal fairly thick Nice lightly smoked flavor. Light hints of pepper lots of lightly bitter cocoa Good but to similar to the cherry porter, neither beer was as big & unique as the styles would suggest.

Tap at Tyranena. The beer pours to a smooth black body with a nice creamy tan head. It’s full of smooth charred black malts and light creamy chocolate. Pepper is there with a nice balanced bite on the flavor and the palate. The beer is quite creamy. A very easy drink that I enjoyed a lot.