Blackstone Brewing Company - St. Charles Porter

This English-style brown porter is Blackstone's most-awarded brew, having taken home 8 Great American Beer Festival medals and 2 World Beer Cup medals. In fact, it’s also the most awarded brown porter in GABF history. After sampling this delicious porter, it's easy to see why. Presenting a rich, dark brown hue with garnet flashes and a medium brown head, St. Charles delivers plenty of engaging aromatics including woody and lightly floral hops overlaying toasted & roasted malts and light caramelization. Hints of toffee and chocolate emerge as well. In the flavor, look for prominent roasted malts to lead the way, along with dark chocolate, scorched bread crust, deep caramel, touches of dark-roasted coffee, and an undercurrent of raisin-like dried fruit. The roasted notes and moderate hop bitterness easily balance any residual sweetness to keep this brew on the dry side, especially in the lingering finish. On the full side of medium-bodied, this porter makes a good accompaniment to grilled meats of all types, along with British cheeses like Cotswold, Cheddar, and Gloucester. Cheers!

The history of Blackstone Brewing Company begins in 1994 with the opening of Blackstone Restaurant & Brewery on West End Avenue in Nashville, TN. Co-founders Kent Taylor and Stephanie Weins made an excellent, complementary team, with Stephanie managing the restaurant part of the business and Kent handling the brewing operations. Back in 1994, the craft beer renaissance was still in its opening stages, and visitors to the restaurant sometimes walked out when they realized there was no Bud Light on tap. But times change, and ultimately the restaurant became a fixture in the area, serving good food and good beer to Nashville residents and visitors for over two decades.

In 2011, Blackstone made the jump from brewpub to production brewery with the opening of their 15,000 sq. ft. brewhouse on Clifton Avenue. Featuring a German-designed 30-barrel brewing system and a bottling line, Blackstone Brewing Company's new facility gave them the ability to produce beer for retail sale throughout the region. Sadly, Stephanie passed away in 2014, and with restaurant management admittedly not his strong suit, Kent made the decision to close the original restaurant and focus all his attention on the new brewing company and its Taproom. In addition to great beer, visitors to the Taproom can enjoy good food from the "B-Stone Bus," a 1989 Ford school bus converted into a food bus (who needs a food truck when you can have a food bus!). For more info about Blackstone, visit them at blackstonebeer.com.