One of the first beers I really loved in my beer journey was the Black Butte Porter. When you live in Portland, it's easy to find yourself attracted to anything from Deschutes Brewing, and the Porter quickly became one of my faves. My wife, Rachael, and I drank Black Butte for the majority of our honeymoon.
That said, I've lately found my love for the Black Butte Porter waning, likely due to the death of so many tastebuds from drinking Imperial IPA's and anything from Stone Brewing (they don't call it Ruination for nothing). It just tastes watery to me, now. It's a good flavor, there's just not enough of it!
And in walks the XX. Drinking the XX reminded me of what Black Butte Porter used to taste like. Strong, sweet -- overwhelming me with chocolatey goodness with a hint of smoke (Black Butte is a dormant volcano near Bend, OR). In fact, it was almost too sweet (especially for us hopheads).
As the night wore on, and Jason began to nurse his normal four beers at a time, his XX warmed up and sat half-full between us. And then genius struck him.
We had ordered a pitcher of Full Sail's Prodigal Sun IPA (one of the best IPA's I've had in awhile that's not Boundary Bay) and still had a pint and a half left of it. Considering the overly sweet XX, Jason decided on an experiment -- promptly filling up his XX half-pint to the brim with Prodigal Sun. Probably the best description came from one acquaintance who tried it:
"$#*&, that's good!"
Due to the letters in the name of the Porter, some have called it the Porn Star Porter. So, I declare that the name of Jason's hybrid black and tannish brew is "The Prodigal Porn Star." And it is good. It is very good.
-Joe Lopez
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