Oliphant Nose Hozzle Baltic Porter

Oliphant Nose Hozzle Baltic Porter.

8% ABV, Oliphant Brewing, Somerset, WI. 

Here is a beer I was in search of for years, ever since my first visit to Oliphant, back in late 2014. I had tried a sampler portion of Gaer Bear, a Baltic Porter, but chose an IPA to take home in a growler, and review here, instead. These were the days before crowlers, and I wasn't going to purchase multiple glass growlers and grow my collection even larger. I never saw that beer again. The closest I came was a barrel-aged version, but not the original. And then, earlier this year, Oliphant announced that they were re-releasing Gaer Bear under a new name, Nose Hozzle, for some reason or another. I asked my boss, the beer buyer at the retail store where I currently work, to please order some when it became available. Perhaps he forgot to, maybe it was solicited on a week when he was going to skip that distributor, who knows, but it never happened, he never ordered it, the beer was never on the shelves at South Lyndale Liquor, and I wasn't in the habit of shopping elsewhere. 

Months went by, and I finally brought it up with Good Ol' Josh, when he came to the store to discuss a tasting event. Wouldn't you know it, they still had some at the brewery, and the next week Mr. Miller delivered and at last they were mine. And now I will open one, and tell you about it. Let's see if I like it as well as when I first had it, almost seven years ago. 

Dark hued, nearly black, opaque, with a slim, creamy tan head. 

In the nose: Roasted malts hit first, dry and bittersweet, Cocoa and coffee in the aroma, with moderate hops. Good stuff going on here. 

In the mouth: Comes on smooth, but hearty. Robust and flowing with flavor. Sweet malt cuts through the hops, leaves a load of cocoa and espresso on the palate. Dark fruit abounds as well, cherries, figs, berries. Dark and delicious. This is exactly what I want from a Baltic Porter, and I wish I could grab this one on the regular. Sometimes, on occasion, I do desire more than an IPA. 

So good. So very, very good.