Church-Key Black Velvet Elvis

Formerly brewed at Church-Key Brewing
Style: Fruit Beer
Pethericks Corners, Canada

Volo scores again. Nitro-tap creaminess, which has its pros and cons. It was creamy and smoothed out whatever added in. Tasted like a warmed fruit and porter mix. Light-medium mouth feel. Roasty aroma

On tap at Volo. I’m glad that Church Key had a keg of this left over after the Judge fest (which I missed) and were kind enough to offer it to a bar that is a 15 minute walk from my office. Dark brown colour with a small mocha head. Malty, roasty nose with some coffee and chocolate, and a hint of the cider. The acidity of the cider seems to have mellowed the chocolate. I got more coffee and toffee out of the flavour instead, and as tupalev noted, it had some charactistics of an old style porter. Experiments like this are usually really good or really awful - thankfully, this was a good one. I’d drink this often if it was a regular offering.

Chocolate, malt, light coffee and a faint candy aroma, completely dark brown, almost no head. Tastes of chocolate, coffee with sugar, and treacle. Light bodied, sweetish. A nice treat for a beer fest.

Deep dark brown, small tan head. Lots of the chocolate porter comes through in the aroma with only a hint of the cider. Mouthfeel was very light on the tongue, beer felt just a little thinner than the regular porter. I thought the taste was really nice - not quite like the dessert qualities of this beer when it was laced with vanilla on cask at Volo, but maybe more like a nice after dinner port. The acidity of the cider really blended well with the porter, making this taste like an old style porter. After being pretty subdued, I found the cider really came through about halfway through my glass, and I was left with a dry apple aftertaste. A wonderful little experiment, thanks to John and the other brewers at the fest who made the effort for giving us beer folk a chance to try something different.

Dark brown w/ a small light beige head. Aroma is roasty & chocolaty w/ some tart apple cider notes. Thin, light feel. Roasty flavour of chocolate & apple pie w/ a slight woodiness. A fun idea, but ultimately uninspiring.