0 for 2 - Samuel Smith Taddy Porter

As I mentioned earlier, this past weekend marked the opening of the 2012-13 BPL season. That meant matches on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Unfortunately, I had to wait until Monday to see my favorite team, Manchester United kickoff their season against Everton on the road. Since the matches take place 6 hours ahead of my Central time zone, I had to do my best to avoid the score in order to preserve the match that I had recorded while at work. Due to the increasing popularity of the English football leagues, this has become a more difficult task. The league is no longer relegated to the obscure channels far down the cable dial. This match aired on ESPN2.

I thought it would be fitting to pair the match viewing with an English beer, specifically a Samuel Smith Taddy Porter. What a great combination, my favorite team hopefully starting their 20th championship campaign and my favorite kind of beer and one which has a near perfect rating on Beer Advocate?

The game started out well enough. The home Everton crowd was very much into the match and the atmosphere was much more like late round cup match with more at stake than the first of a 38 match season. My side lacked the creativity and ability to find the back of the net. Everton was inspired and broke through early in the 2nd half. They never relinquished the lead and took all three points.

Since the match was a disappointment, what about the beer?

Appearance: I used my new English pint glass courtesy of World Market for this proper pint. Beer had a pitch black appearance. The dark color hid the carbonation that made it look practically still. One finger of khaki colored head was apparent. Beer had some decent lacing, but not as much as I would have expected.

Smell: Heavy malt aroma was present. Picked up some coffee notes as well.

Taste/Mouthfeel: Lots of roasted malt flavor with some smoky coffee as well. More of a lingering bitterness than some American porters, like Sierra Nevada. Beer had sort of a flat finish and not much carbonation noted and a heavy mouthfeel. The bitterness did mellow out some as it warmed up.

Overall: This porter was more stout like than I had expected with the lingering bitterness. Not as creamy of a mouthfeel as some other porters I have had. I tend to disagree with the Beer Advocate views on this one. Not one of my favorite porters. I prefer the Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout to this porter. For more info on this beer, please see http://www.samuelsmithsbrewery.co.uk/taddyporter.html

The only success from this Monday night was the fact that I had avoided the score and managed to have 90 minutes of solitude to watch the match in its entirety. Not the result I wanted on the football (soccer) or beer front. Luckily United has 37 more chances to make it up and I have hundreds more beers to try.

Cheers!