Incendiary Brewing Company Baltic Porter

Pleasant but subtle aroma: light roast, licorice, coffee, bitter chocolate, caramel. In the flavor, malt sweetness with chocolate, caramel, nuts; spice notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander. Full body. Nuanced and interesting. Finishes fairly sweet.

Aroma ranges from toasted breadcrust to treacle—roasty, with accents of hazelnut, brown sugar, molasses, raisin, plum, and coffee. Balanced, subtle sweetness in the flavor, roast and caramel with notes of chocolate, praline, sherry. Body is lighter than expected, but the subtlety makes you wish everything was turned up just a few notches.

“Moderate caramel, ripe plum, prune, rich dark chocolate, roast coffee, and light smoke aroma with black raisin chiming in quickly. Strong roast notes make it a style outlier, but the flavor is complex with caramel, toasty, and toffee malt notes, slight black licorice, hints of bacon smoke, moderate sweet chocolate, and lots of dark fruit—prunes, black raisins, plums, and black cherries. Extensively layered; the light maple notes push the mental association with sweetness, but it’s well balanced with a stern bitterness and substantial but clean alcohol. Dark fruits and toffee linger in the semisweet finish, yet it conveys a crisp lager fermentation character.”