Hello Beer lovers, and welcome back to another review here at TEH.
Here we are again with another beer from Selby based Jolly Sailor Brewery and once again it is another well presented bottle that contains a neat back story, this time telling us how Benedict, a French Monk found a resting point at Selby on his quest to start a new monastery. I won’t go into this much more but if you are keen to find out yourselves, Google The Vision of St Germain, or indeed buy yourself a bottle of two of this appealing sounding coffee porter.
1. Name : Dark Nights Porter
2. Brewery: Jolly Sailor Brewery (Selby, North Yorkshire, England)
3. Hops : Pilgrim & Fuggles
4. Grain : Barley, Wheat along with Maris Otter, Crystal T. Wheat, Chocolate & Brown malts
5. Aroma : Chocolate, caramel with a touch of vanilla dominate the nose although very little in terms of coffee
6. Appearance : Pours black with a touch of lightbleed and a one finger tan coloured head
7. Body : Light to medium body with an easy drinking mouthfeel.
8. Taste : This has a pleasant flavour profile with nice chocolate, caramel and vanilla notes, however as with the aroma I was expecting more from the coffee.
Overall, I enjoyed Dark Nights Porter from Jolly Sailor Brewery and would imagine that this would be much superior as a cask beer. This is not to say that the bottled version is bad, certainly not, however as much as I quite enjoyed it, I was also left a little underwhelmed.
If I had drank this without reading what was on the bottle, I would have said that this was a chocolate, vanilla porter as these are certainly the dominant flavours, however the first thing that you read is ‘A smooth coffee porter beer’. This is quite deceiving as the coffee is so subtle that you would barely recognise it is there.
The big question is, would I drink this again? The answer to this is yes as I did enjoy the beer, in fact it is rather nice but because I was expecting more coffee this is what lead me to feeling underwhelmed. I have to say that Dark Nights Porter is well worth checking out for a solid and enjoyable beer, perhaps a note to the brewer is to highlight the chocolate, caramel and vanilla aspects rather than focussing on the coffee and you might find that you will have more of a hit on your hands.
Another solid effort from Jolly Sailor
Marks overall rating: 3.3/ 5.0
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