No, not
BJCP or
Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines, but historically a true beer style in its own right. Now, if you're a regular reader of
Zythophile (Martyn Cornell) or
Shut Up About Barclay Perkins (Ron Pattinson) you may have heard much of the information in this post and may care to stop reading. My motivation for the post is due to some background I looked into while formulating a homebrew recipe for said style, London Porter, that I will be brewing tomorrow (well, now today since it's just gone past midnight in Austin).
Obviously, since I conducted the interview with Steve Schmidt at
Meantime Brewing in London for TheBrewingNetwork's
The Jamil Show - Can You Brew It?, my first inclination was to just brew the recipe that Steve gave us for
Meantime London Porter. However, I wanted to try some of the real thing along with other interpretations of the style before I completely settled on my own recipe. So, I gathered a few bottles of not only
Meantime's London Porter but also
Fuller's London Porter, these being the only examples from the UK that I could get my hands on. Knowing that at least before the late 18th century porters had a woodsmoke flavor to them, I decided to also try
Stone Brewing's Smoked Porter again just as an additional reference point.
One thing was pretty obvious to me as soon as I started sampling - I really do like porters, a lot! There were quite distinct (almost drastic) differences between all three beers. I tried the
Meantime first (though far from the first time that I've had any of these) and the first thing I picked up on was the smokiness in the flavor and aroma. My first sample that had come right out of the refrigerator certainly had a fairly strong smoke note in the flavor. However, I later sampled another bottle that I had let rise to proper serving temperature for beers from the British Isles and in the flavor, the notes of toffee, caramel, and chocolate were the most dominant and the smokiness was really quite subdued. This sample was also much more flavorful, creamy and luscious than the cold one. I then tried the
Fuller's version. This is one lovely beer but is certainly devoid of any smokiness whatsoever (in fact, Martyn Cornell finds it too sweet). When I checked the website for its ingredients, it does, in fact, lack any smoke-flavored malt. Its flavor incorporates caramel, toffee, and a bit stronger chocolate malt flavor than does the
Meantime but is certainly sweeter as well. I'd say the
Fuller's version falls more into line with mid- to late-19th century porters only without the sour notes (more on all this later). Now to the
Stone Smoked Porter. I think this one is thrown off historically mostly by its hop profile which comes as little surprise given that it is
Stone we're talking about. However, it is not so much the hopping rate as the varieties used. I don't think any 17th-19th century porter brewer would have had access to hops remotely similar to Columbus or, to a lesser degree, Mt Hood. I don't know what smoked malt they use either but it is certainly vastly different from the flavor of the
Weyermann that
Meantime uses and definitely much more pronounced. The aroma and flavor of the
Stone porter reminds me more of a German
Steinbier (stone beer) made by throwing super heating stones into the wort. It is a quite distinct flavor.
I ultimately decided to go with the
Meantime recipe. Still, I wanted to know more about this world changing style of beer. Since it is an intrinsically British style of beer, naturally I sourced the definitive guide on the subject first - Martyn Cornell's
Amber, Gold and Black. The grist for
Meantime's London Porter includes two malts related to historical London porter from before the mid-18th century, Brown Malt and
Weyermann's Smoked Malt (Rauch Malt). No, London brewers didn't use German smoked malt, for certain. The historical tie is actually with Brown Malt, also known at the time in question as Blown, Snap or Porter Malt. This is probably best described by quoting Henry Stopes in
Malt and Malting, published in 1885 - "Slight differences only are made in the processes of manufacture of this article [Brown, Blown, Snap, or Porter Malt] from ordinary or pale malt in all stages except the final one of drying." "The corn is then laden upon the kiln at a thickness rarely exceeding one and a-half inches. The fire consists exclusively of wood, generally oak, but occasionally beech." "Moderate heat is maintained at first until the moisture has been largely dissipated, then the fire is made up, and flares and blazes...". "The sudden and intense heat causes all the grain that has been properly grown to swell to the extent of twenty-five per cent., and the nature of the fuel employed communicates, very agreeably, the empyreumatic [roast, burnt and probably smoky (Cornell)] properties that distinguish this class of malt." The malt was referred to as 'blown' because the heat became so intense that the kernels actually burst, exploded like popcorn. They picked up the woodsmoke flavor from the oak/beech wood used to fire the kiln. Hence, these original porters did have a smoky element to them.
Obviously, no 'blown' malt is made today. Neither are modern Brown Malts very similar to their predecessors used to make London porter.
Meantime's use of modern Brown Malt along with the
Weyermann Smoked Malt is a practical, contemporary attempt at reproducing the flavor of these London porters prior to about the mid-18th century, the original porters. One element missing from any of these modern interpretations of London Porter is the stale/sour element of certain aged porters. However, I leave this for the next post. More to come on the history of this once number one beer style in the world...
Yours Aye!
Neil
