Edmund Fitzgerald Porter

Great Lakes Brewing Company – Cleveland, OH

(Photo borrowed from thegazz.com)

Info: I don’t normally do this, but here’s the entire block of text from the GLBC web site. Just look and marvel at all the awards this beer has acquired! Man! TYPE/STYLE:

Porter: Originated in Great Britain and named after the porters who hauled goods from wagons to the stands at the open air markets common to England at that time. FOOD COMPLEMENTS:

Roasty and smoked flavors like barbecued ribs, steaks and oysters. Also a favorite with chocolate desserts. BRAND NAME:

Named after the ship that frequently docked in Cleveland and sunk in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975 with many Northeast Ohioans on board. AWARDS: Gold Medal, 2008 World Beer Championships

Silver Medal, 2007 Great American Beer Festival

Gold Medal, 2006 World Beer Championships

Bronze Medal, 2004 Great American Beer Festival

Gold Medal, 2003 World Beer Championships

Gold Medal, 2002 Great American Beer Festival

Gold Medal, 2002 World Beer Championships

World Champion, Gold Medal, 2001 World Beer Championships

Gold Medal, 1998 World Beer Championships

Silver Medal, 1997 World Beer Championships

Gold Medal, 1996 World Beer Championships

Bronze Medal, 1996 World Beer Cup, Colorado

World Champion, Platinum Medal, 1994 World Beer Championships

Gold Medal, 1993 Great American Beer Festival

Gold Medal, 1991 Great American Beer Festival

I like porters. For those who might be new to my beer review, this is a revelation. For those learned, well, then it’s a review. Porters and stouts are my favorite. Hands down. What’s also nice is having a brewery that presents this echelon of beers so very close to home. After all, Michigan (where I presently reside) is the Great Lake State, and, we do love sharing our beach borders with a few other states. Hey, we’re nice that way. So, Cleveland sits near Lake Erie (granted, the nastiest of the five lakes) and the brewery does a fine job of creating a lot of wonderful beers. So this, the porter, will be the first of a series. Cuz it’s fun.

The pour is dark, a little more ruby-hued than I’m used to with a porter, but very pretty. The head is rich for a little while, and then it’s fleeting. It has a rich, caramel aroma with deep roasty notes and an almost malty finish. It certainly smells similar to most of the porters I’ve had. So far, so good.

The first sip offers up a nutty, deep and intense flavor with hidden nuances of hops and smokey fruit. Wow, now that was a pompous appraisal, wouldn’t you say? Yeah, I don’t normally get that intimate, but it was good, right? Seriously, it has a very nice and very typical porter-style flavor, though it does indeed have differentiating blends of more subtle flavors. I do find a hit of bitter hops, maybe a hidden tongue of coffee, and certainly a chocolate mouth-feel that may be even more obvious than many of the other porters I’ve had that claim to include such ingredients. It is a darn fine representation, indeed. As is stated above, there’s no reason not to match this sample with a nice grilled fair, maybe even a deeply-flavored fish like salmon. Dessert? Sure. I’d sit a plate of cherry cordials with it. Why not. Enjoy!

Rating: * * * * 1/2

An exceedingly tasty porter full of roasted cocoa hints and a clean, slightly bitter-sweet finish. Very nice.

Oh, and just in case you are blissfully unaware of what the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was, here ya go! Wiki-