The Apothecary Porter

The Apothecary Porter
Gifted by the brewer, 6.8% ABV

Flip-top giant bottle filled at the source

apothecaryI know this looks to be a rather boring picture of the beer – not that most aren’t boring. But now that my house comes with an almost three-year-old clowny clown kid, I like to make them more exciting. After all, this non-ad supported site is all about page views and click throughs, right?

Yeah. Right. That’s why there’s a basket of laundry to be folded there to the left in the background. And what’s that? My son racing away on his little car that he outgrew a year prior? Yeah, I’m all about the glitz and glamour of high-profile beer blogging! FREE BEER, PLEEEEEASE.

Actually, with Lasting Brass, it’s always “free” beer. I shouldn’t even use the quotes, because as a homebrewer, it’s always absolutely free. But I like to give Ed, the man behind the beer, some rare and delicious beer in trade. Or chocolates from a high-end shop. Or offer to buy our families pizza, only to find out he already ordered and paid for it when we last visited.

Damnit, Ed.

And after enjoying this porter, I learned that he has enough of a chocolate profile coming through that he didn’t even need the chocolate I brought.

Seriously, damnit Ed!

Lasting Brass Says:

Our Robust Porter which has a subtle complexity from the english yeast flavors and esters that changes to a slight roast and coffee notes as it warms up.

This is a very true-to-style porter. No wacky add-ins or barrel aging or anything. Just a rich, roasty, malty straight-up porter. In this day and age, that’s sometimes hard to come by. And finding a porter with the right amount of coffee and chocolate notes coming through, without the addition of coffee beans or chocolate nibs, is somewhat of a rarity. While each batch Ed has brewed has changed a little bit, my batch was perhaps a tiny bit thin, but it didn’t take away from the richness of the aroma and flavor.

This is a dang good porter, and enjoying it in the endless winter of 2013-14 was just about perfect. I encourage you all to responsibly drink your porters and stouts during endless polar vortex winters.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI also encourage you to re-think Waterbury, aka, the Dirty Water. Sure it has seen better days, but there is beauty and history to be found there – in spades. Years ago, someone from the wonderful Mattatuck Museum contacted me about a program they had developed to explore the city’s rich architectural history. They had created several walking guides with lots of information for the curious explorer. Hey! That’s me!

One iconic building in the center of town is the Apothecaries Hall Building. It’s a classic “flatiron” structure, located at Exchange Place, where several important city thoroughfares intersect. In 1849, Dr. Gideon L. Pratt opened a drugstore at Exchange Place in a Greek Revival-style building that had been built in 1829 by Benedict and Coe as a general store. Called Apothecaries Hall, the business continued and grew under various owners for many years. In 1892, the original building was torn down and replaced, at the same spot, by the current structure in 1894. Designed by Theodore Peck, the Renaissance Revival building is constructed of marble, granite and Roman brick.

[Picture and text from the wonderful Historic Buildings of Connecticut]

The-Four-Humors---Phlegmatic-by-Art-HazelwoodIt has been transformed into “luxury” apartments with “spectacular” views of downtown Waterbury. And oh look! Two-time felon, pride of Waterbury, Disgraced former Governor John Rowland appears in this news item about the apartments!

[Art from here]

You may be wondering, “What’s an ‘apothecary’?” I figure there are two types of people who read these pages – people who already know what an apothecary is and people who don’t, but actually care to know. If you don’t care and didn’t know, you would not still be reading this page. Simply, an apothecary is an antiquated term for a person who prepares and sells drugs or compounds for medicinal purposes.

The term was used back when such people were full of crap though. Back when “humours” were things and penicillin was not. If they had a delicious alcoholic porter to “prescribe” to an ailing 8-year-old, they would have done so.

Once again, Lasting Brass has incorporated a bit of Waterbury history with a naming convention that has further clever connotations.

And once again again, Ed has brewed a sublimely excellent beer.

Overall Rating: A-
Rating vs. Similar style: A

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