charlottesville virginia

Darktober 12: Boxcar Pumpkin Porter

~ lobablanca

Brewer: Starr Hill Brewing Company
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia
Type: English Porter
ABV: 5.2%

Time to end our work-inspired travel tour and bring it back home for this week’s seasonal brew. Remember how I said, in my review of Dark Starr Stout, that Starr Hill would be making a return appearance this Darktober? Welcome to the return: Boxcar Pumpkin Porter.

Warm autumnal scents of nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, and allspice over the pungent trace of star anise rise from the depths of this midnight-tinted brew. The taste, however, is…incongruous.

Boxcar dropkicks your palate with a full-frontal bitter blast. It’s actually quite jarring, especially considering the “comfort food” nose that precedes it. You wouldn’t be wrong to expect a rush of flavors reminiscent of a warm slice of fresh pumpkin pie.

Instead, this porter’s flavor is more like the truest essence of cooked pumpkin

Darktober 6: Dark Starr Stout

~ lobablanca

Brewer: Starr Hill Brewing Company
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia
Type: Irish Dry Stout
ABV: 4.2%

I made a promise to myself when I first decided that Saturdays would be reserved for stouts that I would not dub them “Stouturdays.” I’m sticking with that promise…but in a way that still gets out there yet further evidence of my addiction to portmanteaux.

For our first trip to stouter days (I’m sorry!), I’ve chosen Dark Starr Stout, from Charlottesville, Virginia’s Starr Hill Brewery. This is another relatively local brewery of which I’ve only just begun to take note. They’ve been operational since 1999, but since moving to newer, bigger digs in 2005, they’ve been slowly expanding out from their Blue Ridge-nestled comfort zone, to include Tennessee, both Carolinas, and finally Maryland.

I’ll give you a little hint of what’s to come: This won’t be the only Starr Hill appearance this month.

It is, however, my very first experience with their beers. Dark Starr, which looks to be their darkest year-round offering, is an Irish dry stout in the tradition of one of my very first dark loves: Guinness. Subsequently, it’s been a very long time since I had this type of stout, because it’s been a very long time since I drank a Guinness. Not since I ruined everything by drinking a Guinness fresh from the brewery. Nothing sold in this country with the name Guinness stamped on it can in any way compare, so I just gave up trying. I guess that it’s just too long a journey from Ireland to here for the beer to retain its fresher flavors, even with those silly plastic rockets or ping pong balls floating around in the container. Damn you, Guinness factory, for being so far away!

Anyway. So Dark Starr Stout. Burnished obsidian pour with a reserved yet lush head, and you’re immediately awash in vapors rich in roasty, toasty, malty, nutty decadence. It was such a satisfying bouquet that I paused for a moment just to inhale it a little longer than usual. Beautiful nose on this beer. Beautiful.

Then came the first sip. To me, a properly crafted stout should be like “Reveille” for your tongue’s platoon of bitter buds. Dark Starr hit every note with almost pitch-perfect accuracy. It’s not an aggressive stout, but it’s still striking in many ways: satisfying mouth feel and a cascade of pleasantly bitter flavors such as fresh black coffee, dark chocolate, pumpernickel toast. The finish is dry (as it should be) and leaves behind just the faintest trace of sweetness.

From start to finish, this stout did not disappoint. It also brought the familiar one-two punch that stouts always carry for me: a warm comforting heaviness in my stomach and an inescapable wave of “stout” sleepiness. As I said before, stouts are “meal” beers to me, and this one was a very satisfying serving. I’m quite elated to have finally tried this beer and look forward to my next Starr Hill experience.