Fuller's - London Porter

This is what old people should smell like! This deep, dark, intriguing mixture of bitter coffee, chocolate and alcohol is a delicious pint and an example of what I expect when I drink a porter. Many in the porter/stout family have the coffee/dark chocolate characteristics in differing quantities but this seems to have them just right. The body of it is so dark, it looks like someone has just coloured in the insides of my glass with a felt tip pen and spilt some cappuccino foam on top, it looks like melted obsidian and tastes like it should be really bad for you... I imagine it is, drinking a pint of something that black and thick can't be healthy... There's probably a joke in there somewhere.

Fuller's have long redeemed themselves in my eyes for their errors in making Chiswick bitter, a beer I remember absolutely hating, by wowing me with ESB, Their Vintage, Honeydew and, now, their London Porter. What more is there to say? Fuller's set the standard for English beer because they've been around since the dawn of time... Beer time, and they've made award winners the same way I make letters happen with my fingers. Would you be surprised if I told you this one was a prize winner? You shouldn't be. Does it matter what prize it won? Not really. What prizes have you won recently? Exactly.

I've had a lot of really exciting Porters recently, it seems to be the style that breweries go to when they really want to show off. It's the style that you go to when you want to make big tasting, bold flavoured, black as a black hole playing with a pot of black paint, beer that can be anywhere between 5% and 15%. Even after having all of those exceptionally creative and delicious Porters, I will always be happy if someone plonks a bottle of this down in front of me.

Food Suggestion: Cheese, strong cheese, strong cheese that's flinty enough to cut you if you eat it at the wrong angle. Hovis biscuits, screw the people who say you shouldn't have them with cheese because they're too sweet. They're WRONG!

Drink this if you like: Any bitter-sweet Porters or Stouts. This is the standard, this is the thing that other things should be compared to.