Trip to the Fridge – Cooperstown Benchwarmer Porter
I was pretty excited on Christmas when I opened my present from my Sister and saw a bottle of Cooperstown Brewing Company Benchwarmer Porter, and a matching t-shirt. For a beer lover this was a perfect gift. She picked it up on their vacation to Cooperstown last summer, so this beer had a quite a journey… Cooperstown to NYC to Seattle to Yakima and back to Seattle. All to end up in a glass, examined, smelled, tasted, tasted and eventually drank down.
By the time it got to us, it was very well carbonated, to say the least. For me this was the only problem I had with it. It had a good roasted malt, chocolate, and coffee flavor with a nice hop finish. After warming up a bit, and letting the carbonation settle down, it got even better, and I enjoyed it, wishing I had another. Lush C thought it wasn’t bad. A little more hoppier and thin bodied than what she likes in a Porter. She thought it was more like a Brown IPA.
Brewery Information
“Benchwarmer” is a very smooth Porter brewed in accordance with the original “high gravity” porters of early London. More than 4% chocolate malt, which is the most similar to the brown malts of the early 1700’s, gives “Benchwarmer” its dry coffee-like finish. It is fermented with the Ringwood yeast which is an excellent yeast for the brewing of porters. The widely accepted theory of how porter got its name is that it was a very popular beer among the porters who hauled produce and goods around the marketplace of early industrialized London.
Original Gravity 1.062 / Final Gravity 1.014 / 6.4% abv.
Good Beer Trips Description: Color: Dark Auburn Brown Clarity: Clear Head: Cream colored, well carbonated, lingers. Aroma: Toasted malt, Chocolate, CoffeeBody: Thin Bodied, well carbonated (at first)
Flavor: Dark roasted malt, with chocolate and coffee Finish: Bitter hop
Consensus: Drink it if you are near, but don’t go out of your way.
Good Beer Trips 