Luther Public House Review

Earlier this year I started having some email contact with another Minneapolis area homebrewer. Derek blogs at
Beer This! blog, and also has a website displaying his beers at Luther Public House. As someone who likes to have a theme to his beers, I enjoy how the names of his beers follow along with his Martin Luther theme.
Derek contacted me in the spring about trying some of my Gringo. Unfortunately things were crazy in the spring with the end of school and the birth of my son. Derek was very patient and I set aside a Gringo for him. We finally met up a couple weeks ago over some beers at Busters in South Minneapolis. I had a great time talking beer and walked away with three beers from the Luther Public House. His PhilliPorter, a mild, and a triple. I've yet to get to the triple, but throughly enjoyed the other two.

PhilliPorter: Derek told me that he didn't have any bottles left of his Indulgence Chocolate Porter, he hooked me up with an older bottle of his PhilliPorter, which is a similar recipe. He warned me that it would be oxidized, but the oxidation wasn't that noticeable and definitely didn't detract from the outstanding porter. As you can see from the picture, it pours a jet black with a two finger khaki head that dissipates to about a finger of foamy head. Nice porter aromas, chocolate and roasted malt. A very slight wet cardboard or "dusty" taste at first, but it goes away very quickly and doesn't take away from the wonderful porter underneath. Wonderful chocolate flavors, along with some nice caramel and roasty notes. The mouthfeel is perfect for a porter, creamy and silky with body but not too much. There's a great lingering sweetness in the finish. Despite being old and slightly oxidized, this beer was great. I can only imagine that fresh it's an outstanding porter.

Mild: I have to admit that I've never really had a mild. I read an article on the style in Brew Your Own magazine and have been interested in brewing one. After having Derek's, I need to brew one up. This beer pours a dark chocolate brown with ruby red highlights and a thin white head. Wonderful toasty, bready, and biscuity aromas. Very enticing! Toasty, malty and slightly sweet, it has a nice balance of flavors going on. The beer starts off biscuity and follows with some nice brown sugar flavors as well. There's no hop presence, a very nice amount of caramel and is well balanced and all about the malty sweetness. A very great session beer and one that I might need the recipe for.

I'm really looking forward to the triple, as it's one of my favorite styles of beer. These two samples of Derek's work were great and I can only imagine the triple will be more of the same.
Salud!
Bearded Brewer