It's not a light beer, however. The brewery's description suggests that it was designed smoke-first with the syrup as an afterthought, but it's exceedingly dense, though tastes and feels more like chocolate sauce than maple syrup. The base porter, then, is wonderfully full-flavoured, packed with high-cocoa chocolate mixed with dark-roast coffee, the impact aided by the silky texture. Yet oddly there's very little smoke, that I could detect, maybe just a hint of burnt sugar to signal its presence. I don't miss it, though; there are few things worse than a smoked porter that tastes ashen or fishy, and this definitely isn't one of those. The maple flavour arrives right on the end, present but unobtrusive. I'm not sure it's needed: the underlying porter is plenty.
This is the sort of high quality autumn seasonal that works well any time of the year. It's big, bold and luxurious, yet at a strength to permit mid-week drinking. Another addition to the Kinnegar pantheon of top notch dark beers.
