At Pub 27 in Pompeii
Weekend Ale Trails! Virginia Beach: Home Republic Smoked Maple Porter
Date: April 1,2019
The Story— Of the dozen or so Virginia Beach breweries, Home Republic is one of our favorites. It’s not the biggest, nor the most lavishly funded, and their beers can vary a bit, but they have a remarkable knack of presenting styles of beers that we don’t usually like and make them surprisingly moreish. An example is their Slightly Sour Ale; although it presents some sourness at first, you get used to it, and when you do rich wood carries the day.
Today’s feature is another style we greeted with some skepticism. Porters are just fine — they don’t usually need a lot of adulteration to make them better. Maybe the smoke or the maple would be OK, but both? We’re not sure Andrew Tso is still the brewer, but his work with the malt and the maple in this beer was startlingly successful.
The Beer—Black cherry color and fairly dark. Malt in the aroma with very subtle smoke and maple. Chewy roast malt. very very clean roast. Smoke shows mostly as wood. creamy full body supports the soft stepping adjuncts. Just enough hops. Slight fruit. I could drink this all night
Value — Good to very good. Beer in Virginia is rarely cheap unless you’re buying cheap beer.
About these posts: We taste and evaluate over a thousand beers every year. The beers posted here rank in the top quarter of those tastings. Values: “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.
For the next several weeks we’ll feature fun places to explore beer — and much more–a different destination each week. Our beers of the day will feature beers from this wonderfully wet destinations. For the first week of April, we’re featuring some of the gems we’ve found in Virginia Beach breweries. A caveat as always: the vast majorities of craft breweries may have a few beers that are usually available, but their most interesting beers are usual season or one-off brews that we may rave about, but you can’t find. Our specific beer descriptions, can tell you what sorts of beers the brewery does well; if you don’t find the exact beer on tap, you’ll probably find something similar.
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