$15.99 per 25.4-ounce bottle
At first blush, a peach porter doesn’t seem like a good idea — kind of like squeezing peach juice into your morning coffee. That fear is washed away with the first sip of this dark, rich wintertime elixir, the latest in Odell’s Single Serve Series. Avant Peche is a big-bodied, high-alcohol warmer that pours with graceful fluidity, leaving a glass filled with opaque black liquid and a thick, tan head like a root-beer float. The aroma presents espresso, roasted chocolate malt and oak, but no peach. It’s not until you get a mouthful of Avant Peche that the fruit and wild yeast arise, and then only the faintest hint. There’s no mistaking that this is a serious porter, with its dark smokiness. But the peach, added with the lightest hand, just lends a little something extra that sends this beer into world-class orbit. Alcohol by volume of 9.5 percent. Odell Brewing Co., Fort Collins;
Marcus Chamberland; mchamberland@denverpost.com
