Style Snapshot: A guide to the roasty, robust porter

WHAT IS IT?

A style of dark ale initially brewed with Brown Malt in the 18th century, which has laterally become a robust malt forward beverage with lots of toasted malt, coffee, and chocolate notes.

DANGER LEVEL

Might fall in the Thames or participate in a Knees Up.

GLASS

Nonic Pint

STYLE STATS

ABV: 4.0-5.4%
IBU: 18-25
Colour: Chestnut to black
Body: Medium to medium full
Bubbles: Measured British enthusiasm

ORIGIN STORY

Picture it! 18^th century London! Cockney labourers dine on oyster and jellied eels when they’re not hoisting boxes of stuff around in the Thames dockyards! The government, knowing that gin is too strong to allow for such activity, lower the taxes on beer in order to keep the Porters upright. Demand for the refreshment that only Brown Malt and Brettanomyces can provide leads to huge industrial breweries that only periodically result in neighbourhood-wide floods!

DRINK WITH

• Unagi Don
• PEI Malpeque Oysters
• Texas-style BBQ Brisket

HEY, IS THERE CHOCOLATE OR COFFEE IN THIS?

Not usually. Here’s the wild thing about grain: The roasting process is basically the same as coffee and chocolate. It’s a seed going into an oven at a high temperature. What you’re tasting are Maillard by-products like Pyrazine and Melanoidins, which are also produced in the coffee and chocolate roasting processes. Yeah! Science!