#40: Renaissance Elemental Porter

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted anything, but this time I think I have a good excuse… I was moving house!
My flatmates and I have made what we are hoping to be a “financially responsible” decision, moving out of our brand new little townhouse with all the mod cons, to a little old concrete villa on the other side of town. I am probably going to miss my air conditioning, gas cooking and underfloor heating… But it is only a short walk to work, which will hopefully be even better for the wallet. The only thing is, that means it is only a short walk from town as well, which may not be so good for my wallet…

But that’s getting ahead of myself a little… Last week I had some pretty interesting beers before the move got under way. A couple of beers that simply have to be written about! (Anybody who has let me chew their ear off over the last  few days will know exactly what I am talking about…) But before I do, I felt I should mention a beer that I had all but forgotten about for a little while, the Renaissance Elemental Porter.

Last Wednesday it was Dave’s last day at work, he was finishing up, ready to go back to Ireland for good. So after we finished up at work, a few of us sat down to have a quiet little drink. At this point I was thinking to myself: It’s OK, I may be moving in the weekend, but it;s Dave’s last day! I can have a drink…?
Then we got word, House on Hood was tapping a new keg of the Elemental Porter. I started to have a little internal struggle… I need  to be packing, but it’s good beer, with a good mate that I may not see again for a loooong time…
It’s pretty obvious which direction I went in… (otherwise this would be a pretty boring post about packing socks…)

It was a cold, wintery Wednesday night (by Hamilton standards anyway), the bar was deserted which meant that we got our beers pretty damn quick. Straight away there were these amazing roasty coffee notes on the nose. The mouth was full, without being heavy, carrying a perfect balance of  dark fruit, chocolate and coffee like flavours, leaving a moreishly long, chocolatey finish. Such a great beer! If you haven’t had one, GET ONE! Every time I have this beer, I am amazed at how they can balance the flavour so well, it straddles that line where one can be satisfying, but I could happily drink pint after pint.
…so we did!

Needless to say, didn’t get a lot of packing done that night. The next thing I knew I was at another bar down the road, at 2.30 in the morning, with a group of people I hardly knew. Discussing the finer points of growing your own herbs with possibly the most tattoo covered man I think I have seen… (Really nice guy though!)