Beer: 100 Barrel Series #62: Nana’s Nightcap
Brewery: Harpoon Brewery
Style: Porter – Imperial/Double
9% ABV / 35 IBU

This is Nana’s nightcap? Nana must have a seriously high tolerance or one killer hangover cure, because there’s a distinct possibility Nana ain’t getting up on time to power walk in her tracksuit after guzzling this one. But maybe Nana is just a little randy, like Blanche DuBois in the Golden Girls– this recent addition to Harpoon’s 100 Barrel Series is fanciful, mercurial, warm, and spicy. Not necessarily things that you associate with a porter, but very welcome all the same. It’s the perfect winter beer if you’re in training for hibernation-by-inebriation.

First, an aside about the 100 Barrel Series, just because it’s a radical idea: Harpoon stages an employees-only annual brewing competition called The Owners Cup, and the winning potion is often bottled or canned and rolled out to the public for limited release. In the case of Nana’s Nightcap, there’s still glory in a second place finish – this oatmeal cookie inspired imperial porter was the runner-up in The Owners Cup in 2015.

Nana’s Nightcap rates high on at least two fronts where a lot of other porters fail: It’s a full-bodied brew and not inexplicably thin like similarly medium-to-high ABV Baltic porters, and it’s not depressingly one-note like a lot of coffee porters. There are some roasted coffee notes, possibly just from the malt, but they are incredibly muted. Honestly, this imperial porter totally delivers on its “Oatmeal Cookie Inspired” tagline and it actually smells and tastes like cookie dough with equal parts cinnamon/vanilla/nutmeg Thanks, Nana, this is way better than that $2 bill you sent me for Christmas last year!

More more info, check out Harpoon here.