Inner Glow

The details: Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. Inner Glow Golden Stout, 6.8% ABV, 23 IBU, served in a 12 oz. bottle and poured into a pint glass

It'll be four years this May. 1,461 days. I'm not going to count the minutes because I really don't want to have that annoying song from Rent stuck in my head. 

Just typing that was enough to make me want to drink to forget. But, I digress.

What's got me remembering May of 2015 right this moment is my wedding. Not only because it was completely awesome and I got to go home with the hot bride, and not just because I have absolutely no idea what a fourth anniversary gift is supposed to be (Google says in the US it's fruit, and in the UK it's linen or silk. WTF fruit?), but because since that day I've been searching for something that I've never been able to find. The obvious reason for this is that it's never been made again, but I've always hoped that with enough searching, I could find something that would be a reasonable facsimile. 

On our wedding day we were lucky enough to receive as a gift five torpedoes of special made beer from our friend Heather, who was at the time working for Sixpoint Brewing. I remember biking down to the brewery one morning and talking over with her they styles we liked, and what Heather was interested in making. We settled on a delicious blonde milk stout, and I know that sounds strange but trust me - we killed all five of those torpedoes before half the reception was over.

Some of you will remember my review from last October of The Breury's Or Xata, which was sold to me as a 'blonde stout' but really was off that mark. For those that either don't remember, or weren't here for that one, allow me to take a quick moment to talk about golden/blonde/white stouts.

The big question: are they stouts? In the eyes of the Brewers Association Style Guidelines, the answer is a resounding no. They define most stouts as having a SRM of 40+, which is a measurement of beer color and a score that means "dark black." So now that that formality is out of the way, let's get to the more interesting question: if you closed your eyes would you think you're drinking a stout? The answer to that, at least for me, is yes.

It's apparently become a brewer's challenge to make this style, and Greenport Harbor out on the northern end of Long Island has taken up the task with their seasonal brew Inner Glow. Full disclosure: this beer was a gift from our upstairs neighbor who used to live and still frequently visits Montauk with a note that "this beer is interesting, it might end up in one of Matt's letters." How right she was.

So the obvious part of this beer is that it's an ale with a grain bill that didn't include much in the way of malts (since we all know that's what gives beer a darker color). To make this taste like a stout it's been infused with coffee and chocolate, both of which are very forward in the flavor profile. Another thing that's been done to get this beer to be more like a stout is that it's been brewed with oats to help give it the mouthfeel of a stout. Most stouts are more on the viscous side of beer; they're thicker and will coat your tongue after every sip as if the flavor just didn't want to let go. If this beer were sweeter like many stouts I don't think I'd mind it as much, but for some reason here it doesn't work as well. It's almost too viscous, and I wish for a lighter stout like a dry Irish style. To give you an idea of what I mean, the bubbles in this beer don't actually rise to the top, they hang in suspension. 

All in all the flavor is good here. It's still not our Fergland, but I think it's one of the closest things to it I've drank in a long time.

The verdict: 3.75 out of 5 (on Untapp'd - follow me @slownumbers to see what I'm drinking)