Hunkering down, inside, with a good book and a pint of St. Peter’s Plum Porter whilst, outside, Storm Franklin lashes my window with rain, and a day that had dawned bright turns as dark as the drink in my glass.

Plum Porter is suggestive of a different age.  Even the bottle it comes in is a throwback to a bygone past of solid brown glassware and cylindrical oval design; the kind of receptacle that might once have held poison and would be more likely discovered during an archaeological dig than on a supermarket shelf.

With a head like a Cappuccino on steroids or the accumulating spume of a tidal foreshore, there is an almost impenetrable darkness to the liquid, which only the brightest of lights permits to occasionally flash ruby red.

There is a sweet, slightly sickly smell, reminiscent of an old-fashioned cough linctus I was prescribed as a child, and the first sip only reinforces this memory but, drinking on past my infant sickbed, the taste changes, fast-forwarding me towards a maturity where I appreciate abstract burnt umber oil paintings and picking damsons in the hedgerow.

I confess, porter would not be my go-to choice of beer under normal circumstances, but while the wind continues to howl and the rain makes me seek warm sanctuary, I am happy to have found any porter in a storm.

© Beery Sue

Beery Sue continues to appreciate the comforts of drinking at home.