And the Valley Drinks: Horny Goat Chocolate & Peanut Butter Porter

So back in the fall, through ESPN LSU beat writer David Ching's twitter (an excellent follow who does a good job and is a good dude to boot) I discovered that Terrapin Brewing out of Georgia has something called Liquid Bliss. It's a chocolate and peanut butter porter.

I had to have it. The search was on. After a couple of false alarms, and a taste of it at the Chimes, I managed to pick up two six packs at the Calandro's on Perkins, which I enjoyed in the lead up to the LSU-Florida game. It sounds like a lot, and it's definitely a heavy beer, but Liquid Bliss finds way to stride the line between the sweetness of chocolate, the grainy texture of a porter and the saltiness of peanut butter without letting any of those elements overpower. It's exquisite.

Now, I told you that story, to tell you this one. A couple weeks back, in a Friday evening stop-in at Cuban Liquor, I noticed Horny Goat's own version of the chocolate/peanut butter porter. Given that Liquid Bliss is hard enough to find, and I believe out of season now, I grabbed some.

Horny Goat is out of Milwaukee. Never been able to try anything else of theirs, but they seem to have a solid lineup and this one made a great first impression:

A full bodied porter that gets its dark luscious color from the generous use of roasted malts.  You'll get just the right amount of chocolate and peanut butter to question whether you're drinking a glass of delicious suds or popping a peanut butter cup in your mouth.

Review

As you'd expect for a porter, this has a rich, dark color and a light brown head. Kind of peanut-butter colored. The bouquet is very sweet -- but don't let that scare you off if you're not a fan of sweet beers, because I have my limits there too and I loved this. It smells pretty much exactly like a Reese's Cup. The opening is smooth in texture, and really hits you hard with the roasted malts of a porter. But it segues quickly into the PB&C combo, and it's sweet, but not overwhelmingly so. The finish and aftertaste is a little salty, and it balances things out well. It comes in packs of four bottles at 6.5 alcohol-by-volume. I give it an excellent 4.5 out of five stars. Would highly recommend picking up if you're riding out this crappy cold, wet weather in Baton Rouge.