Tuatara Porter – Cherry Hopinator Version

I’d planned to review some fairly commonplace beers first to get my sea legs. I actually thought it’d be pretty interesting to start with something ubiquitous and unpleasant – ooh, Mac’s Gold, say – to vent some of the spleen that’s been building up for a few years.

But nothing ever goes according to plan. During that bit of odd downtime between Christmas and New Year – the annual cycle equivalent of Sunday tea time - the Trouble and I went on a special expedition to the Malthouse to try the Cherry Hopinator version of the Tuatara Porter. Whilst sitting and sipping, the Trouble asked what I was going to write about this one, and I thought ‘well, I have some momentum, why not?’. So there.

In fact, we’re dealing with three distinct variables here. First up, the Malthouse. This used to be a fantastic pub-type thing on Willis St, and has now become an interesting sort of bar-type thing on Courtney Place. I have an ambiguous relationship with the Malthouse. For years, it was the saviour of decent beer in Wellington and the sole reason that I didn’t run screaming back to the UK within a week of arriving in NZ. But the Courtney Place makeover is, well, odd. I could devote several hundred words to ruminating on the nature of this venue, and probably will, but not now. In short – do I like it? Don’t know. But they serve darn good beer. 

So, whither this hopinator thing? Well, it’s a sort of column type affair bolted to the bar, and unique to the Malthouse. You put stuff in it, pass beer through it, and the beer comes out tasting or smelling of the stuff. I think the device itself used to be something to do with coffee or some such like, but frankly I’ve been very mistaken on all sorts of things in the past (‘smoking – that looks like a fun habit’) so I won’t pin my colours on this one. Sometimes the hopinator has hops in it, sometimes it has fruit. This time round, it was the turn of cherries. They sort of lingered in the chilled column thing in a fashion vaguely reminiscent of the pickled animals in jars in science classes. I swear one of them looked mournful.

And the final factor – Tuatara Porter. I should really review this beer on its tod without on-the-spot addition of dispirited looking cherries, but my extensive background in its consumption enabled an easy comparison. Much like the Malthouse, I have an ambivalent relationship with porter as a style. What exactly does one do with it? Neck it for refreshment like a mild? Sup it like a stout? It’s sort of a bit too strong, but a bit too thin, but a bit too dark… Some might call it an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a particularly poor beer writer too lazy to even look at wikipedia. Personally I just buy it when I want a sessionable stout. The other handy thing is that nobody ever steals it at parties because New Zealanders appear to lack the gene necessary for metabolising dark beer.

That aside, the fact of the matter is that nobody really knows what the hell to do with porter as it more or less died out in the 19^th century, and was sort of reinvented in the late 20^th. But the Malthouse have come up with at least one solution – pump it past some fruit that looks a little like it thought its life would turn out differently.

And I have to say, this is one of the reasons I love beer. Thank you, Lord, for your great gift of Belgians. A little history here. There are three great brewing nations on earth – England, Belgium and Germany. And, ok, America currently making everybody look a bit boring and old-fashioned, but I’m not giving them any more airtime at the moment. So, Germany has a Reinheitsgebot tradition – a purity law (is that phrase making anybody else’s eyebrow arch everso slightly?) disallowing the use of anything other than hops, grain, yeast and water in brewing. England, rather characteristically, ploughed a similar furrow, but without application of Teutonic-style legal frameworks. I put it down to the meat-and-two-veg approach to life. Nothing too fancy. But the Belgians… oh my. For the last 100 years or so, they’ve put pretty much anything in beer. Seriously. Fruit, sugar, insects, dead rats, spices, creosote, pieces of the true cross, microphones, microphone stands, moustache clippings…

This devil-may-care attitude to the art of brewing, gifted to us by the Belgians, is one of the things that makes drinking beer such an exciting experience. Can you imagine a wine-lover doing this? ‘Rupert, this Pinot Gris is particularly subtle and gentle on the palate, with some nice citrus notes, but what say you we see what happens if we sluice it through a chilled coffee percolator filled with distended fruit?’.

Anyway, I’ve digressed far too much in this piece. I was at a party the other night where I got complained at because my first post was too long. Sorry, people, but you’re getting this stuff for free, and it’s solid gold, every word. Patience. Here comes the money shot – what did it actually taste like?

Well, like porter with cherries in it. And very good. Nice, but not overwhelming, smell of cherries on the first lift, and a solid malty taste without being overwhelmed by the fruit. The cherries added some astringency (look it up) and a pleasant counterbalance to the darkish semi-chocolate hints that come from the base beer. The Trouble thought she couldn’t taste the cherries until halfway through her glass, but seriously, what does she know about it? I thought it was great. It was a lot like, ooh, complex alcoholic cherry cola? A dark Kriek? Thoroughly pleasant and grown-up drink. I thought at the time it may have been served a little too cold, but with the cherry cola slant on it, it makes a lot more sense.

In summary, an experience definitely recommended, with a slight reservation. I’m still not entirely sure what one would do with a beer like this. I’m stumped for food matches at the moment apart from the obvious black forest gateau. I don’t think it’s strong enough to balance out a ripe cheese, plus I’m not sure the Malthouse will let you bring your own cheese (but there’s an idea – ‘bring your own cheese night’). You could always just tour the pub saying ‘hey, try this, it’s really interesting’, and actually, hell, I think that’s enough fun to keep you going, particularly if you use it as a pickup line. Never worked for me, but I’m interested in field reports. There you go. Homework.