You know when you have a mid afternoon craving for the odd peanut butter and chocolate cookie? This beer is not the answer - don't do it. It tastes awfully like a peanut butter and chocolate cookie, but at 6.6% ABV, you might find yourself crawling under the desk for a quiet afternoon kip.
Now here is a turn up for the books. This is not a #BeerScoffer review. Someone let the editor near the beer fridge so it is he scribing this tome of love and fancy. The nose of this porter is rich with chocolate ganache, with a hint of hazelnut and the ever present peanut butter. Imagine a chewy warm cookie straight from the oven, slowly cooling on a wire rack. Thats the smell you're going to get.
It is a porter so a while a rich chocolatey goodness lies within, its still a hefty dark beer with some serious thump about it. A dessert beer - perhaps. Something to have with a smokey pulled pork thingamy - oh yes. While the nose is sweet the palate has a lovely bitterness in the finish and suggestion of peanut butter remains all the way till its all gone and you are contemplating another one. Therein lies the appeal of this beer.
The can design, which I understand to be a thing to comment on, is a tad high school creative arts but it suits the product so judge, lest not ye be judged.
Bad Shepherd are a brew pub based in Cheltenham in Melbourne's south east, and I fear a little sojourn on a caboose to sample more of their wares is on the Christmas visitor check list. This is a great beer for Christmas, for winter or if you must, a mid afternoon pick me up in place of a sugary cookie.
Peanut Butter Porter - 24 x 355mL $105