Silver Moon Brewing Co.
Bend, OR
Snake Bite is a robust English-style porter for the seasoned porter lover. Fair weather, pinky-up beer drinkers stand back. Porter lovers come forward, grab your Snake Bite with a firm grip, quaff and smile. You’ve been bit. Hopped with Chinook, Northern Brewer and East Kent Goldings.
ABV: 5.5
ABW: 4.4
COLOR: N/A
BITTERNESS: 40
ORIGINAL GRAVITY: 1055
AVAILABLE: OR, WA
I’ve seen paler stouts; this sucker’s opaque. After that, the thick, rich aromas of bittersweet chocolate cake, coffee grounds and a bit of prune are no surprise. But the first mouthful is. Sure, it’s bitter—I expect that given the Oregon pedigree—but it’s light and bitter. There’s a lightly clingy edge of malt, but it really flies around in the mouth. Easy to drink—if you like it bitter and a bit roasty/ashy—and at only 5.5 percent, you could easily drink a few.
With the recent proliferation of imperial, “extreme” and flavored and barrel-aged porters, it’s kind of nice to come across one with no pretensions of being anything more than a basic, well-crafted beer. That’s where deep, dark ale comes in, with a softly smoky aroma carrying just a whiff of coffee and figs, and a gentle, mildly sweet mocha-ish body. The finish jars a bit with a burnt quality, but generally this is a fine ale that feels no need to scream its attributes from the rooftop.
Lew Bryson writes about beer and whiskey from his home in southeast Pennsylvania. He has a family and two dogs. That’s all you need to know.
Once described as “beerdom’s Brillat-Savarin,” Stephen Beaumont is the author of five books and countless articles on beer, spirits, food, travel and how it all goes together.
Wed Jul 3rd, 2013
The Young Turks and Old Lions of Breweries
Once a year the whole world of craft brewers, and I do mean the whole world, gathers together for four days of catching up, digesting new ideas, staying up way...
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