Evil Twin Brewing’s Imperial Doughnut Break Porter (and more beer musings)

Well, I really suck at keeping this blog updated. My last post was two months ago, and since then I have done a ton of fun beer things that I just forgot to blog about! I recently came back from a trip to St Petersburg, Florida and the beer scene is just booming down there. There are 4 breweries in downtown St Pete, and across the bay you’ve got Cigar City. I was lucky enough to go to Cigar City twice, Rapp Brewing twice, Cycle Brewing three times, and Green Bench Brewing once. And all of them were fantastic. Cycle has some amazing hop driven beers, especially their IPA’s and session IPA’s. Green Bench has some really creative beers, like their Black IPA and a sour double IPA that was just amazing. The beer-highlight of the trip, however, was going to Rapp Brewing. I enjoyed a flight of beers the first time, having their Kotbusser, Double IPA, Polotmavy, and Berliner Weisse with woodruff syrup. The second time, they had their Gose on tap and it was just amazing! Salty and sour and delicious. And I got a tour of the brewery and talked beer with the head brewer, who was super nice! And of course, going to Cigar City was always a treat, where I had three flights and two pints while my sister was in a meeting at work (yeah, I ended up pretty tipsy. But every Cigar City beer I had was so tasty!)

Since my last post, I’ve also checked out a new local brewery in DC, Bluejacket. They’ve got some really solid beers, and the ambiance of the tasting room and adjacent restaurant is really cool. Being close to Nat’s Stadium on the Waterfront, they’re set to be super busy this spring. I’ve also brewed a couple more batches of my own beer at Browntown Brewing, and they’ve been so much fun. A couple of Tasmanian IPA’s with hops from Australia (Galaxy) and New Zealand (Rakau and Nelson Sauvin), a raspberry wheat, and the DuDu Brown ale with my sister. Next up is hopefully a gose, because Rapp’s is so tasty and I can’t get it up in DC.

But now to the fun stuff: a beer review! I could have, and probably should have, reviewed some beers while I was in Florida, but I was on vacation and just enjoyed how delicious those beers were. Today my local beer store got in a shipment of the latest Evil Twin Brewing beers! I chose to bring home a bomber of Evil Twin’s Imperial Doughnut Break, and I’m glad I chose it. An Imperial Porter brewed with doughnuts and coffee, this beer is so tasty! And I think Evil Twin’s brewing as a gypsy brewery is just really cool, this beer was brewed at Westbrook Brewing Company in South Carolina.

Aroma– From the moment I cracked this bottle, coffee aroma poured out of of the bottle. In the glass, the coffee comes to the forefront, with some chocolate, and sweet bready maltiness also coming into play. Definitely reminds me of a cup of coffee and a warm doughnut (think of one fresh off of the line from Krispy Kreme).

Appearance– Aesthetically, this beer is gorgeous. It pours a dark brown, bordering on black, with a thick dark tan head two fingers thick that keeps for a little bit of time before receding to a fingers width and then disappearing.

Taste– On the first taste, the bitter roasty coffee notes assert themselves, and they get comfortable on your palate. The bready maltiness from the aroma is pretty apparent as well, and is paired with a sweetness that is very reminiscent of a glazed doughnut. Chocolate also comes into play, but it is heavily outweighed by the coffee. Which is not surprising, since this porter is brewed with coffee, along with a ton of doughnuts. I was somewhat skeptical of this beer, since doughnut beers seem a little gimmicky and end up not tasting the way you would think it would. But I have heard rave reviews about their Imperial Biscotti Break, so I decided to grab it. And I am really happy that it is so tasty, just because a doughnut beer is such an awesome idea, and it sounds so delicious, but its disappointing when you hear bad reviews about the ones that are already out there. But this beer restores my faith in the doughnut beer style (I know it’s not a beer style, but how awesome would it be if it was?) As the beer warms up, the 11.5% ABV becomes more apparent, in the form of a warming alcohol booziness.

Mouthfeel– It has a bit of a carbonic bite right after you pour it, which accentuates the bitter coffee notes. After the head has receded, it has a smooth, slick mouthfeel, which is probably attributed to all of the unfermentable sugars which contribute to the sweetness of this beer. The high ABV also contributes to the mouthfeel, with the alcohol giving the beer a warming feel to it.

Overall Impression– Fantastic. This beer is really well done. The bitter coffee notes balance out the sweetness and the doughy malt backbone, capturing the simplistic bliss of pairing a doughnut with a cup of coffee. Although slightly boozier than the beers I usually drink, coming in at 11.5%, it is still really enjoyable. But by the time I finish the 22 oz. bomber, I’ll probably be heavily buzzed. This is my second Evil Twin beer, with the first being their Bikini Beer session IPA. At 2.7% ABV, it was surprisingly full of tons of hop flavor and wasn’t all too watery. After this beer, I will definitely be keeping an eye out for more Evil Twin beers!