The second canned offering from the folks at Crow Peak (the first being their 11th Hour IPA). Not only is this the only canned craft beer from South Dakota but one of only a handful of breweries in the state. We love the designs for the cans Crow Peak has released thus far. Keep em coming!

From the Crow Peak site:

"This robust porter is black in color, is medium-bodied and has a rich, roasted malt flavor ending with a pleasing hop flavor and mild hop bitterness."

Here we go...

Pour - very, very dark. Pitch black in color with a thin coffee-colored head that quickly fades into the mire leaving traces of lace and islands of foam.

Aroma - cocoa, dark coffee grounds, earthy with some hints of dark fruit. Lots of roasty aromas. I'm drawn to this like the sound of my coffeemaker in the morning.

Taste - big, roasty and malty with a nice bite. Lots of coffee and cocoa flavors and big on the roasted malt but at the back of the tongue there is a nice bitterness that rounds it all out and gives this beer a nice finish. There are some tastes of molasses and/or licorice that come out at times. I also love the bitter coffee flavor and hoppy citrusy combination this has. I wish I had more...

Overall - to me a good porter should be dark and malty but not too sweet with some bitterness or hoppiness. This one hits all the marks. Well done and definitely worthy of your attention so seek it out. If you like plenty of flavor in a beer and the abyss of a dark brew doesn't intimidate you than you'll certainly enjoy this one.

Would I buy more of it? - absolutely, this is a great porter. 

Note - it's great to see breweries take the leap of faith and go straight to cans and bypassing bottles altogether. Crow Peak, in the relatively small town of Spearfish, South Dakota, should see a good deal of success with their canned offerings and I look forward to seeing what else comes off their canning lines in the future!

The side of the Pile O' Dirt Porter can has a link to a site called funkpottery.com. The site pays homage to a brewery friend, Shawn Funk, who passed away after a car accident. Shawn made all of the mugs (see below) that Crow Peak uses for their mug club. The brewery hopes to one day offer a scholarship to a local art student in Shawn's name.