Bell's Brewery: "To a Locomotive in Winter - IV" Smoked Porter

I don't think I've ever tried a beer from Bell's Brewery, but here we go...

This particular beer is part of series "celebrating literary classics":
Bell's website: explanation of the "literary classics"

I'm going to refrain from commenting on that aspect, since "classic literature" for me includes Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov, and just talk about the beer.

First of all, it's a smoked porter, or as a certain politician might say, "smocked". "IV" pours a deep dark brown with a healthy chocolate head. The aroma is a little off-putting, as it literally smells like a smoldering campfire - cool if you like that sort of thing, but I could do without it. However, the taste does communicate the smoke that strongly. Once you get past the smoke, the underlying porter is a solid ale that you can sink your teeth into. As it approaches room temperature some chocolate and brown sugar starts to emerge in the taste profile. I can imagine pairing this with a nicely grilled steak, or some pulled pork barbecue. Maybe even something spicy. Overall, pretty decent. 6.5 on the IGB scale.