“What’s the difference between a porter and a stout?”
Roasted barley. That’s the usual explanation of what separates porter and stout. Unfortunately that story is total bollocks. The true tale is more complicated, more confusing and much more fun.
Let’s go back to their childhood. Eighteenth-century London with its elegant squares, gin and the birth of industrial-scale brewing. Something that could only have happened in London. Pre-powered transport moving large quantities of beer overland was impractical and expensive. London was the only city in the world with the critical mass of beer drinkers to power an industrial brewing reactor.
The story of porter—the first style to span the world—is one of technology, innovation and taxation. And war.
Brown beer. Sounds uninspiring as a style. But that’s where the roots of porter lie. London beers brewed from 100 percent brown malt. Styles of the time were a simple matrix of base malt, hopping rate and strength. Pale, amber, brown. Beer, ale. Small, common, stout. Porter was a common brown beer. And brown stout was . . . a stout brown beer… CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT ALL ABOUT BEER
