A Porter. A collaboration between brewer Jessica Heidrich and Galatea. Available between 1st September – 14th November or while stocks last.

5.4% ABV. Systembolaget Article Number 11409-03. Price 19.90SEK (330ml bottle)

Look

A delicious looking dark dark brown porter with a thick, clingy cappuccino-coloured head. If you count the bottle too (which has been embellished and embossed) then this is one hell of a sexy looking beer!

Smell

Not surprisingly for a porter named after a type of vanilla the first thing to register with your olfactory system (also known as your nose) is creamy vanilla sauce, backed up by dark chocolate, juniper berries and burnt toast. After a while the vanilla subsides but the chocolate lingers on. I swear the smell of this beer was so rich I actually put on weight sniffing it. A 5 out of 5 aroma!

Taste

The intensity of the nose somehow didn’t all transfer over to the taste of this porter. There’s a creamy vanilla sauce front and then things suddenly change and the flavours turn dry, bitter and roasted. The mouthfeel also seems to transform from medium bodied to a shade thin, making me think of an odd combination of BrewDog’s Zeitgeist watered down with Guinness. Bags of piquant roasted malt, chocolate and ink before a dry coffee-like finish.

Food

With its distinctive vanilla and chocolate character this porter screams out to be paired with a rich chocolate cake and other chocolate-based dessert.

Nerd Note

Pompona Porter is the latest edition to the revitalised S:t Eriks family of beers created by Swedish brewer Jessica Heidrich and Galatea. The fact Jessica has experimented with vanilla with this popular Swedish beer brand demonstrates just how exciting and adventurous beer making in this country is right now. At 5.4% this has a lot of the coffee and chocolate flavours you’ll find in more rugged US porters but has a far higher degree of drinkability. If you like vanilla that is!

Score