Santa’s Butt– what an interesting name for a beer.  This is one beer in a series of Christmas-themed beers from Ridgeway.  Let’s break it down a little.  First of all, Santa’s “something” is an appropriate name for this time of year.  Surely, his “Butt” is not appropriate.  Well, there’s actually more than meets the eye to the name.  Double entendre anyone?  A ”Butt” is actually an older term that meant barrel.  Porters, such as Entire Butt, play to this fact.  I guess the implication is that the beer came from Santa’s Barrel (you can see why I didn’t say that it came from Santa’s Butt).  Ah! British humor.  Without futher ado, let’s talk about the beer.

The beer comes in at 6% ABV, which is perfectly fine for a Porter.  Of course there are stronger versions, notably Okocim’s version.  Santa’s Butt had very little head retention and a deep reddish-brown body.  It fit very nicely into a pint glass. 

On the nose, it had a slightly metallic, winish touch, plenty of toasted & burnt grain, and touches of chocolate.  There were also hints of honey, hops, and sweet malts. 

Along with the chocolate taste, the sweet malts translated into the palate.  Dry burnt grains  also gave off a very nice roastiness to the beer, as well as a imparting a slight dry saltine crackers-esk finish.  There was also a slight grape taste to the end of the beer. 

I enjoyed drinking this Porter.  It certainly wasn’t my favorite Porter of all time, but it was a solid display of what the style ought to be.  I don’t think that I will complain if Santa dug a little out of his butt and left it in my stocking.