REVIEW 126: TRICK OR TREAT

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  USA

BREWERY:  Evil Genius Beer Company

STYLE:  Porter

ABV:  7.8%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 12-oz. bottles, $14.99

SERVING:  12-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A normal pour produced an initial head of roughly four full inches. A slow pour slashed it down to roughly an inch and a half. Very good retention.

APPEARANCE:  Semi-transparent body, with a ruby-burgundy color. Spongy and very tightly packed beige head. Moderate bubbling and lacing that is initially splotchy but more consistent with repeated servings.

BOUQUET:  Comes as advertised: Cocoa and pumpkin spices are at the helm. Nutmeg is prominent. You can effectively make out a pie crust. A deep whiff will leave an impression of the whole pumpkin pie in your passageways. Slightly nutty--placebo effect?

PALATE:  For a porter, this has a fairly thin and slightly watery body. Carbonation is soft and slow to assert itself. Pumpkin flavor is all but nonexistent save for some slight notes in the aftertaste. Toasted grains and moderate degrees of bitter chocolate characterize the early and mid-palate; in fact, the "toasted" factor is the through-line here. Somewhat coffee-like finish, with a continued but more suppressed cocoa presence. Overall, a palate that is amiable but ultimately not fully fleshed out; lacks a little punch.

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  This beer is called "Trick or Treat." And it was both. It was certainly a trick, because it was supposed to be a chocolate-pumpkin porter. To Crockett, it tasted like a . . . porter. Put a blindfold on me at the beginning of tonight's session, without mentioning the name of this beer, and I must admit, I would not have thought this was specifically a "chocolate-pumpkin" porter. Chocolate, maybe. But not pumpkin. 

This brew comes from the Evil Genius Beer Company in Philly. But this beer is not genius. That said, it's not evil, either. I rank it accordingly.




GRADE:  C+

Nice pumpkins. Too bad I barely tasted any in this beer.