REVIEW 134: ICELANDIC TOASTED PORTER

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:  Iceland

BREWERY:  Einstök Ölgerð

STYLE:  Porter

ABV:  6.0%

PURCHASE:  Six-pack of 11.2-oz. bottles, $15.99

SERVING:  11.2-oz. bottle, poured into pint glass. A normal pour produced a roughly two-inch head. A slower pour got only a little less. Better than average retention.

APPEARANCE:  Opaque and almost pitch-black with a tan-beige head. No bubbling visible for obvious reasons. Lacing is minimal and scattered. 

BOUQUET:  Coffee, chocolate, and malt for the most part. (Hey, that rhymes.) Or should I say, coffee and chocolate malt for the most part. A faint hop note is makeable, as is some type of fruit or berry. (I cheated and looked it up. It's bilberry, a sort of European blueberry which is close to a blackberry, but is nonetheless nobody's berry but its own.)

PALATE:  Fairly normal body and level of carbonation. Makes for smooth drinking--which isn't necessarily a given with a porter. Not overly rich. Coffee notes dominate the early going, with an ever so slight hop tinge. Chocolate malt fades in at the back. The coffee flavor remains but subsides the rest of the way. Malt notes become mildly roasty, yet with no significant bitterness, in the aftertaste, with a fair amount of yeast rounding things out. 

MUSINGS AND METAPHORS:  The Republic of Iceland makes its debut on Crockett's Cold Ones with this American-style porter from Einstök Ölgerð. How do you pronounce that? We'll start with the "ö," which is sounded as if it were German: A cross between a long "o" and long "u" in English. "Ei" is pronounced as if it were a long "a" in English, "e" in the same manner. Then there's that last letter, which I'm willing to bet most of you have never seen before: "ð." That's uttered as if it were the English "th," as in "the," "this," or "that." Put it all together, and you get AIN-stök ÖL-gairth, if that's the correct way to phonetically write it out. What's it mean? "Einstök" can mean either "individual" or "unsurpassed." "Ölgerð" means "ale brewery," "öl" literally translating to "ale" in English. That's your Icelandic lesson for today, boys and girls.

What a lot of people also don't know is that beer was almost entirely banned from Iceland for most of the twentieth century, due to popular referendum in 1908, taking effect in 1915. In fact, that referendum banned all alcohol until it was partially lifted in 1921 due to trade disputes with Spain and Portugal and the ensuing economic ramifications. Another referendum followed in 1933, further lifting the ban, albeit again only partially: Beer could now be bought, sold, and consumed again, but only if it were, at most, 2.25% ABV. In other words, you were basically stuck with shitty light beer.

It would not be until March 1, 1989--now celebrated annually as "Beer Day"--that the ban was lifted entirely and permanently. Since then, Iceland has seen its hard liquor consumption decline and its beer consumption rise to takes its place. Breweries have sprung up all over the island country. And while this beer doesn't quite live up to its maker's name translated to English--"unsurpassed ale brewery"--it remains a testament to the considerable progress Icelandic brewers have made.




GRADE:  B