Otter Creek Brewing
Middlebury, VT
Available: VT, NH, ME, NY, MA, CT, RI, NJ, MD, NC, PA, OH, VA
Flavored with organic vanilla beans and organic shade-grown coffee from the Alta Gracia community of farmers in the Dominican Republic.
ABV: 5
ABW: 4
Color: ruby black
Bitterness: 18
Original gravity: 1067
What beer goes with wild boletus over buckwheat pasta, a candle-lit table, and dinner with your sweetheart? We fell in love with Alta Gracia. Its deep chocolate and mocha flavors are reflected in the robe, darkest brown with ruby highlights. Tight bubbles of brown emanate pheromones of fresh roasted coffee the morning after. Malt is not overpowered by coffee, just nicely kissed.
Black as night with the faintest of red edges, the cappuccino head had hangs around long enough to offer up an unmistakable whiff of its signature ingredient. The aroma is thick with grainy, medium roast coffee beans, and a hint of dark roast malt. The coffee/porter synergy is a little heavy on the java side, with a burnt sugar finish. This is a palate-cutter, not overly chewy like most porters, but dryish and brisk with that loamy grit finish I expect from roasted grain….and coffee. Coffee beer lovers will dig this one.
Founder of Merchant du Vin and the Pike Brewing Co., Charles Finkel is a pioneer in the marketing of craft beers in America.
K. Florian Klemp is an award-winning homebrewer and general hobbyist who thinks there is no more sublime marriage than that of art and science.
