DuClaw Sweet Baby Jesus! Chocolate Peanut Porter

I like where craft beer is right now, a lot.  I like its (usually) reasonable pricing structure.  I like the variety of craft one can find within a single decent store---and increasingly, within a decent bar or restaurant, a trend I hope continues.  I like the relative ease with which one can find a big, burly, sucker punch of a strong beer like New Holland Dragon's Milk, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot, or North Coast Old Stock Ale; but I also like the recent trend of lighter "session beers" in IPA form.  And I like that I don't have to go to a boutique liquor store to find one or the other; most stores now carry at least a few of the heavy hitters alongside lighter fare.

That being said, some enthusiasts find reasons to believe that craft beer has jumped the shark, or will soon.  Between beers made with bits of real Moby Dick (so you know it's good, I guess?) and beers made with real moon dust (a sexier way of saying "space dirt"), craft brewers' penchant for experimentation seems to be getting a little out of hand.  Need I mention that beer bottled in a squirrel carcass?

Everything has to peak and then fade at some point.  If craft beer soon does too, I hope historians don't phrase it this way: "everyone understood craft beer jumped the shark when brewers started adding fake peanut butter to their beers."  Why?  Because that would mean we are about to see a lot more beers like Sweet Baby Jesus! Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter, which is the last thing craft needs right now.

Sweet Baby Jesus looks the part of a porter.  It is nearly pitch black; when held to the light, a reddened hint of transparency shows itself.  Head retention and formation are both minimal, though I'm pretty sure that is my fault (or rather, my dishwasher's fault).  At any rate, Baby Jesus appears to have adequate carbonation, perhaps verging on too much.

Many moons have passed since "curious" was the first word that popped into my mind upon first smelling a beer.  There is not a shred of (for lack of a better term) "beer flavor" in this ale.  No hops, not really any barley; just peanut butter, chocolate, and sugar.  DuClaw should have dropped "Sweet Baby Jesus" from the name and just called it Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter.  This aroma is a dead-ringer for peanut butter cups.  I must confess that although I have smelled a great many strange things in my beer----melted almonds, pizza, ice cream, garbage can, the color purple, Cutex, freeze-distilled agony---peanut butter is not one of them. 

Same, but different.

It tastes much more like a porter than it smells.  Some of the trademark porter flavors---coffee, molasses, chocolate, a hint of licorice---are there.  Of those, chocolate stands out the most.  Unfortunately, there is something else lurking under the base beer.  That peanut butter flavor...I don't know if there is such a thing as spoiled peanut butter, but that's what this tastes like.  It's very artificial.  Fake.  The bottle proclaims this to be made with artificial flavors and that shows up quite strongly on the taste buds.  Baby Jesus sort of reminds me of Millstream's Pumpkin Stout, in that the phoniness of the ingredients gives the impression something rotten was added to it.  The beer is definitely sweet but the carbonation is a bit too much for me.  It feels lighter and thinner than it should be.


This is one of those new experiences that sounded good on paper but turned out just really awkward in practice.  Equal parts fascinating, perplexing and unappetizing; I haven't quite decided what to do with the remainder of my six pack.