Older Viscosity

“Pop, phisss… utter vacuumed silence.” That is, essentially, the sound a bottle of Older Viscosity makes when you (finally) open it for a drinking. We like to think we could place it a line-up of recorded bottle-openings — much the same way those grating, accented halfwits from “Car Talk” would have you imitate the sound your engine is making it so they can diagnose it. In this case, the utter silence is not a symptom of something being wrong with your $20 bottle of premium, aged dark beer, however. It’s the sound of something horribly right.
This slim, beaker-shaped bottle from Port Brewing is their super-aged version of Old Viscosity — a champion all its own. The San Marcos brewers take different batches of the stuff and blend them in oak bourbon barrels, where it’s aged for a year, according to the brewery. The limited edition brew, released late last year, will likely disappear soon and (with luck) reappear later again this year. We recommend popping one of these bottles every 3,000 miles rather than servicing your car.
The pour comes out a velvety, black desert liquid, more like fossil fuel with a bubbly film than any dark beer we’ve seen. There’s almost no carbonation, few bubbles, negligible head: hence the utter silence. The sight kinda put fear in us, expecting a diesel-strength cask beer. But we were pleasantly surprised by how gentle and refined the 12% ABV beer tasted. Sipping it post-dinner, out of wine goblets in a sepia-toned living room, gave the concoction even more of a digestive vibe. Smelling, we imagined caramel apples, vanilla beans — real dangly ones, not a flavoring — and sweet tawny port. On our tongues, there was a milky, creamy, toffee taste that spread slowly, like dulce de leche spiked with whisky. And when we say milky, we mean like lactic acid, that comforting sticky build-up feel that makes milk and cookies good. Expecting motor oil, we got the chamomile tea of beers.
Dairy Pairy: Quenby Hall Stilton
Soundtrack: Nine Inch Nails’ Further Down the Spiral