Baltic Porter

Blind tasting at sk8vikings porter / stout tasting, beer no 10. Pours dark brown with chocolate brown head. Vanilla and smoked aroma. Malty and vanilla flavour, soft blended. Medium body. Slight bitter hops edge. Chocolate smooth, slight warming finish.

Bottle courtesy of Moejuck: Poured a pitch-black color porter with a medium size foamy head with good retention and some lacing. Aroma of coffee and roasted malt is dominant and enjoyable. Taste is dominated by dry coffee notes as well as some light bitter roasted malt. I was expecting more chocolate notes then I could detect and the beer was a bit more dry then expected. Body was quite full with some medium carbonation and no alcohol was discernable. Overall, while this was a very good beer I thought it was slightly too dry for the style and I can’t figure out why this rated so high but again I am probably not the biggest fan of the style to begin with.

2006 bottle from some "Old" guy in North Carolina, drunk on 1/27/07
Medium-light tan head is initially large, but recedes rather steadily to partial cover/ring, leaving minimal lacing. Despite the darkness of the liquid, it’s clear due to the filtration, with moderate carbonation apparent in it. Dark mahogany with light maroon hues on the edges.
I’ve got to say I was not expecting great things from this one, being very unimpressed thus far with their other offerings. That being said, I went in with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised. Dusty/grainy cocoa fills the nose, with strong lactic acid and roasted malts combining to produce a clean, vinous effect. Sweet pale and caramel malts emerge behind this, with warming and there’s even a touch of fudge. Chalky-smooth minerals from either their yeast or water, definitely a house character, are present, but contrasted nicely to a grainy, dry, almost flaked-barley-like flavor. Chocolate seems to grow stronger and is quite deep and sumptuous, or as much as it can be for being filtered. The vinousness trails off pleasantly in to the distance, on the finish. No alcohol vapors and a high strength of aroma finish out this very well-executed aroma.
Dry roast and medium-sweet chocolate, growing milky and lactic seem supported by sweet, if somewhat simplified pale/caramel sugars (simplified by filtration). The carbonation is done very well and could almost be mistaken for natural if I wasnt such a nazi about carbonation and texture. Attenuation is nearly spot-on, neither too dry nor syrupy-sweet. And of course the lactic notes. Two things I think about it. One, it is very clean and obviously intentionally introduced lactic acid. It would be fun to see some actual lactobacillus instead. But two, and more realistically, it’s done incredibly tastefully and that alone deserves credit. The level of lactic acid perfectly fits the beer without being dominant. Very drinkable stuff, but I’ll say it again, DR would be world class stuff if they would just lessen their filtration and start bottle conditioning.
And in summary, what is a duck-rabbit?

My readers wrote in to answer this question. Apparently: http://www.duckrabbitbrewery.com/huh.html