The pursuit of the perfect porter

If there is one style of craft beer that is underrated, disrespected or even completely forgotten about, it’s the porter. I would be willing to bet that most people, if asked to name one porter, would struggle, even though you’ll probably slap yourself if I told you the obvious answer is Guinness Stout.

Tall, dark and handsome

It’s a shame because, when made correctly, the warm, rich flavors of roasted barley that are the meal ticket of a porter are so wonderful that they could arguably be called the most coveted beer flavors that one could seek. I know the hop-heads would shout “Blasphemy!!!” at even the mention of a style not known as IPA being the most coveted, but as a hop-head, I can admit that sometimes, I’d rather go dark, roasted, smoky and rich.

So what is a porter? The style originated in London in the 1730s during a volatile period in brewing history. The British Crown, outraged by the rampant use of hallucinogens in beer and its adverse effect on the overall health of society, had just outlawed all but a few ingredients that could be used in brewing. This meant that Britain needed a new beer, and with the industrial revolution in full swing, and efficient brewing practices all the rage, a new beer, brewed with dark, roasted barley malts, was what they got. A blue-collared beer for a blue-collared society.

Porter was the first “mass produced” beer style in the world – not in a Budweiser “let’s cut cost by cutting ingredients” way, but in a consistent “same result every time” assembly line way. Interestingly enough, the style never stayed the same for more than a generation, as each brewer in each brewery put his own spin on the product. This experimentation led to the creation of strong porters, otherwise known as stouts.

Before long, the English countryside favorite known as pale ale invaded the metropolitan scene and replaced porter as the new fad. The Irish took the dark style and ran with it in Ireland but the “London Porter” was all but dead.

A delicious example of an American Porter, courtesy
of the Great Lakes Brewing Co in Cleveland, OH

Fast forward a few hundred years or so and bring it across the pond to America and we have all but forgotten about these wonderful dark mysterious industrial beers. Sure, we have gotten very good at brewing up delicious stouts, and there are a few brewers here in the States that make superb porters, such as Dominion Brewing Company’s Baltic Porter and Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, but in reality, porter is still the proverbial undiscovered country in American brewing. Of course, if the American Pale Ale is any indication, when American brewers set out to tackle the style of porter, we will perfect it and make it “the world’s best.”

Here’s to craft-brewed happiness… Cheers!