Beer's always off — port or spirit? (4)
I believe the answer is:
brio
'spirit?' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'beer's always off port' is the wordplay.
'always' becomes 'eer' (poetic way of saying ever).
'off' is a deletion indicator.
'port' becomes 'rio' (I've seen this before).
'beer' with 'eer' taken out is 'b'.
'b'+'rio'='BRIO'
'or' is the link.
(Other definitions for brio that I've seen before include "Vivacity of style" , "Spiritedness" , "In music, con ..... means with dash and verve" , "Drive" , "Animation (Italian)" .)