Empyrian Dark Side Vanilla

Behold the great Nebraska Porter.

Well folks it's been awhile, and I've been holding onto these notes for quite some time, so I figured its about time I threw down and wrote a review about a beer that I like to drink every now and then. Now this beer won't win any awards for it's groundbreaking flavor or flawless style, so it might be a little outside the scope of this blog so far. But Empyrian Dark Side Vanilla Porter is probably one of the easiest go to beers if you're craving a solid dark beer.

Empyrian is a brewing company located in Lincoln Nebraska. Their history is a fairly predicable one for a small local brewery. Guy opened a restaurant, served some of his beer there, demand grew, started brewing more and more, and now he's shipping his beers through a 4 state area in the midwest. Humble beginnings with a pretty happy ending(?) if I've ever heard of one. They offer the usual stable of ales and porters as well as a few seasonal offerings. Nothing especially interesting or ground breaking, but I've never had a beer from them I didn't like, so Empyrian get's points for that.

So how is it?
Humor me for a moment and allow me to shorten my usually long winded review process. Dark Side is a good, smooth, if not unspectacular dark beer. I enjoyed the heck out of drinking it, but would never shout out the rooftops about how great it is.

There. That's the gist of it. I'm putting the conclusion at the middle. Why? Because that just about sums up my whole feelings on this brew.

It pours out as black as midnight. Leaves a slightly thin head, and puts out a pleasant aroma that reminds me of roasted nuts. When you taste it you'd probably find that it's a fairly 'by the numbers' porter: smoothly flavored like cold coffee, vanilla, and a hint of chocolate with a slight hazelnut bite at the end. I can personally drink 3-4 of these down with ease due to the smoothness, so if you're a big fan of porters but don't want to tread on extreme grounds this should be a favorite of yours.

And there you have it.
An unspectacular review for an unspectacular beer. If you catch it on sale at your local supermarket, I recommend picking a 6er up for testing. This beer easily falls into the good but not great category.