5 Seasons -- Two Pence Porter

Here’s to National Beer Day.

And here’s to the day we’ll all be able to walk to a nearby brewery and drink fresh beer in any town in America. That’s when there will be enough breweries per capita – whether they be nanos, micros, brewpubs or production breweries.

Across the street from our offices at 5 Seasons Prado, Kevin McNerney regularly turns out excellent fresh beers, including Two Pence Porter. I have yet to meet a porter I didn’t like, but the current trend to the more chocolatey approach and/or slightly more carbonated are not my favorites. This classic version with just right carbonation has that incomparable slightly tangy and dense roast malt in the middle that hints at chocolate and coffee.

Two Pence Porter also strongly hints at the original days when the men who worked the docks in London, after heaving away all morning, walked to their favorite pub for pints before noon. Or maybe they stopped at the bar after delivering the beer in barrels. They lusted after the countertop mix of fresh brown beer and aged strong ale that came to be what we now call porter. (Or stout, but that’s another story.)

-- Jonathan Ingram