The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery - Porter

Porters can range in color from medium brown to nearly black, and this one is an example of the latter—it’s darker than many stouts out there! This porter has a complex nose with notes of dark chocolate, roasty sweetness, chicory and a woody, fresh-cut pine note. We really enjoyed the rich, creamy mouthfeel, thanks in part to the use of oats. This beer has body, and we’re big fans; honestly, many porters these days are a bit thin for our liking. The flavors evolve as it warms, with plenty of deeply roasted notes conjuring impressions of chocolate, then developing additional coffee and chicory notes, with a slight citrus and pine twang in the middle, and subtle fruit notes of plum and raisins in the end. Good with bread pudding, chocolate desserts, and coffee cake. A tip of the hat to brewer Paul Philippon for yet another knock-out brew.

Founded in 2004, The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery in Farmville, NC, is the brainchild of founder Paul Philippon. Before becoming a professional brewer, he taught philosophy at the university level. One of his favorite philosophy texts, Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein, contains a Gestalt-style image referred to as the Duck-Rabbit diagram. Depending on the viewer’s perspective, the diagram looks like, you guessed it, a duck or a rabbit. Now, we’re not really sure what it means if you see a duck or if you see a rabbit, but we do know that if you’re looking at one of Paul’s Duck-Rabbit beers, you’re in luck—before you is a guaranteed small-batch brewed, extremely tasty beer. We’ve been consistently impressed with everything we’ve sampled—Paul is one hell of a brewer!

We’ve surmised that the meaning behind the Duck-Rabbit duality is essentially that ‘what one sees depends on your state of mind.’ This idea can be applied to one of the brewery’s unique features: they’re one of very few microbreweries to specialize in brewing “dark” beers. While not all of the beers that they brew on their modest 20-barrel system are dark, a majority do tend to be deeper-hued styles like stout, porter, brown ale, etc. While some might see this as a limiting factor for a brewery, reducing their market potential, others might be quick to highlight this as valuable differentiator in the competitive market for craft beer. We tend to see it as the latter. For more information about the brewery, check out their web site at duckrabbitbrewery.com.