Okocim Porter

Review Date 10/31/2000 By John Staradumsky

  Style: Baltic Porter   Brewery: Okocim   Country: Poland   State: N/A   $ Per OZ: N/A   ABV: 8.1%

If you headed off to your favorite liquor store about ten years ago, you might very well have had a hard time finding a decent Polish beer. I can recall back in those days being confronted with some very bad Polish imports, and one very good one ( Zywiec Lager) when I went beer hunting. Today that situation has changed dramatically. I frequent a liquor store in nearby Massachusetts that is located in a community with a large polish contingent. The store features an incredible array of Polish beers: Okocim, Zagtoba, Zywiec and many more. Indeed, they take up an impressive amount of shelf space in a store that has dedicated an impressive amount of shelf space to beer. More than once I have seen a few thirsty customers converse back and forth in Polish while eyeing the selection from that country, and then cart off several six-packs of beer from their land of birth.

Tonight I’m sipping one of my very favorite Polish beers, Okocim Porter. This beer is a Baltic Porter, a style that approaches imperial stouts in strength and intensity. There is good reason for this, since imperial stouts were transported through the Baltic Sea and into Northern Europe and then Russia. The imperial stouts came from England and were top fermented ales. Baltic porters, however, are bottom-fermented lagers. How did this happen? Perhaps a bit of Germanic influence was at work, since there was already a tradition of bottom fermented Schwarzbiers in the eastern German states which border Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Schwarzbier is German and literally translated means “Black Beer”.

Whatever the origins, which may in fact never be known to beer geeks such as myself who ponder such things, Baltic porters are indeed wonderful beers. They are intense and flavorful brews with a potent alcohol content and a better-than-average shelf life.

Okocim Porter pours to a jet-black color with a towering tan head formation and a rich licorice nose. The palate is rich with dark malt, packed with licorice, and hints at prune and chocolate. The finish is smooth, and though it is not bitter it does have a very warming alcohol finish (alcohol is a formidable 8.1 percent by volume here).

As with all beers of this strength, I prefer them after dinner rather than with it.