Monks Porter House and a Dutch Porter

Today I visited Monks Café Porter House at Munkbron 11 in Stockholm. Thank you Linus and Emma for showing up, I had a great time!

The porterhouse is the third out of three different Monks Café in Stockholm, and being opened in august this year also the one of the more recent addition to the Stockholm pub scene. Eventually it will host not only a beer café restaurant but also a porter/stout brewery.

The entrance is a little odd and I get the feeling of having mistakenly ended up in the stockroom but after finding the staircase down to the basement from the 17'th century I feel a lot better. The brick walls with low vaults are combined with modern lightening and cool led screen menus promoting the current offers. That is actually an unnecessary convenience detail considering the quite impressive range of beers they have on both draught (56 to be exact) and bottles (according to the website the three restaurant together offer 1700 different beers).

The bar is nice but I will have to return at something of a more crowded night than a Monday to properly judge it. Anyhow my first impression is better than the other two Monks Café's (Wallingatan and Sveavägen). I will follow up later with a review and I will also follow with interest how the place settles.

Today, I had a De Molen Hammer & Sikkel from a 330 ml bottle after a great special offer for followers of the Monksevent twitter. 60 SEK for a bottle is a bargain since it usually goes for the double. The Hammer & Sikkel is a classic porter with 5.9 % abv and fairly dry.

The beer has a great head, which lasts for a while but after some five minutes fall down to eventually more or less disappear. The colour is intensely dark brown and opaque and the head has a white-coffee-tone.

On the nose it's a intensive smell of coffee and chocolate with a little bit of Chinese soy. It is highly malty and gives away a strong mineral scent.

The taste is a little off dry and has a little acidic twist. The aromas are mainly coffee, nuts, burnt malt, chocolate and earthy aromas with a little tone of ash in the long end. The nutty character makes the mouth feeling a little fatty.

It is a highly complex beer but I find the acidic twist a little too strong and I grade the the beer 6/10.

Best of regards
Lucas Spinnars