I do love my dark beers also, so the next style that I will talk about on this page is the Porter. Porters were first brewed in England during the 18th century. It is believed that they were given this name due to their popularity among Porters, which were people that carried objects or cargo for other people.
Porters were very popular, so popular in fact it became the first style of beer to be brewed all around the world. By the end of the 18th century Porters were being brewed in Ireland, Sweden, England, Russia, and The United States.
The history of Stouts and Porters are intertwined quite a bit because extra strong Porters were commonly referred to as Stout Porters, they eventually shortened the name to just Stout after a while. As a matter of fact Guinness Extra Stout was called Extra Superior Porter until it changed to its current name in 1840. Today the terms are used pretty interchangeably to describe a dark beer and have much more in common than they have differences.
The term Porter was first used in 1721, but did not become common verbiage in print until the 1760s. Early London Porters were very strong compared to today’s standards with ABV being right around 6.6% and an original gravity of 1.071. The Napoleonic wars led to increased taxation on the grains and malts to make the beer so the original gravity got pushed down to 1.055, where it remained for the 19th century.
Due to the increase in taxation, brewers were left to use less malt in their beverages of the time. Their solution was to use a proportion of pale malt and use coloring to get the expected hue of a Porter. A law was passed in 1816 allowing British beer producers to only use malt and hops in the production of beer. This problem was solved in 1817 with the invention of black patent malt. This made it possible to brew a porter using 95% pale malt and 5% black patent malt, though most London brewers also used brown malt for flavor.
After 1860, Porters began to decline in popularity. In the final decades of the century most brewers discontinued their Porters, but continued to brew stouts. Those that continued with their Porters decided to make them weaker and with less hops.
During the early 1900’s Porters continued their decline, as Stouts became a more popular dark beer choice. During the second World War they actually declined so much that England brewed their last Porter in 1941, and the style lay dormant for a few decades afterwards.
In 1972 Anchor Brewing Company started brewing a porter and bottled it in 1974, effectively reviving the style for the new generations. Penhros Microbrewery brewed the first Porter in London in over three decades in 1978. Now lots of breweries in London are back to making Porters in addition to tons of breweries around the world doing the exact same.
Modern day Porters are brewed using a pale malt base and adding black malt, crystal malt, chocolate malt or smoked brown malt. Roasted malt is used on occasion also. The hop bitterness is mild to moderate and the colors of Porters range from brown to black. Porters come in all different sorts of flavors now from coffee, chocolate, pumpkin, vanilla, coconut, and many, many more.
When you are sitting around next time sipping on a beer darker than my soul, you will now know the history behind an amazing beer style, The Porter. Bottoms up!
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