Brewing porter in the early and middle parts of the nineteenth century was a complicated business, as was drinking it.
Pubs in England, it seems, typically stocked both “stale” and “mild” versions of porter, which by that point had already become a staple of sorts among working- and middle-class drinkers. Customers could opt for one or the other, or — more typically, perhaps — they could ask the barman to mix the two as he pulled their pints.
“Stale” porter was porter that had been aged for several months, often at the brewery. During that process, it went through a long secondary fermentation as populations of brettanomyces and lactobacillus living in the holding vats slowly worked through the sugars that the brewing yeasts had left behind. Alas, we’ll never know exactly how a period and properly-aged “stale” tasted, but we can make some imaginative and informed guesses. It was probably mostly still, since the carbon dioxide produced during primary fermentation was unlikely to remain in the beer during its transfer to a conditioning vessel and during the long conditioning process, and since the brettanomyces and lactobacillus cultures were unlikely to produce enough to make up the difference. On the other hand, thanks to the combination of distinctive esters and acids that the brettanomyces and lactobacillus populations would have produced, it was likely vinuous and tart, perhaps even sour — possibly something like a modern dark Oud Bruin.(*) While I do have grand plans to make something similar, I unfortunately need to wait until I have enough space to let a fermentor stocked with oak chips sit somewhere dark and cool while a culture of brettanomyces and lactobacillus works it magic. (Happily, Will over at The Perfect Pint has done this already, so you can read all about it here.)
“Mild” porter, on the other hand, was porter that was served young and fresh, after the saccharomyces had finished its work and the beer had conditioned a little, but before other organisms had the opportunity to begin chewing up the remaining sugars. Historic mild porter is therefore much easier to reproduce (and, more importantly, to taste) than historic stale porter. Conveniently enough, this years’ International Homebrew Project, organized by Al at Fuggled, focused on a porter recipe brewed in 1834 by St. Stephen’s brewery in Norwich, and rescued from the the brewery’s old archives by Ron Pattinson. It’s a delicious-looking recipe, loaded with brown and black malt, a ton of Fuggles hops, and the problematic-yet-often-delicious Fuller’s yeast strain. I brewed up a one-gallon batch of this beer on February 16th, fermented it at 68 degrees for three days, then turned off the temperature controller and let it condition at room temperature for another 12 days before bottling it with enough sugar to carbonate it to a modest 1.5 volumes. It had an original gravity of 1.064 and a final gravity of 1.019, which means that it is now a full-bodied beer of about 5.9% ABV (I narrowly missed my targets — 1.067 OG, 1.021 FG, 6.0% ABV.)
The final result is a bold, delicious porter. It’s deep, deep brown and so opaque in the glass that it seems almost black, but if the light catches it from just the right angle, it shows some ruby highlights. The aroma is full of dark malts, some chocolate, and a hint of toffee. The flavour — ye gods, the flavour. What I notice first is a luxurious mouthfeel, full of smooth, dark espresso, bitter chocolate, and some toffee. Almost immediately, though, that’s complemented by a bracing and spicy, earthy bitterness, which lingers on and on in a gloriously long finish. It’s really, really good. So good, in fact, that I’d probably even be tempted to choose it over a world-class stalwart like Fuller’s London Porter — unless, of course, the Fuller’s was being served on cask in a Pub that knows how to do cask well. Wow.
This is the sort of moment when I really notice the big disadvantage of brewing in one-gallon batches: I’ve only got nine bottles of this wonderful stuff, and it’s going to go fast!
 |
| St. Stephen's 1834 Norwich Porter, resting comfortably (if incongruously) in a Delrium Tremens glass. |
(*) For lots more on historical porters, see Chapter 4 of Martyn Cornell, Amber, Gold, & Black: The History of Britain's Great Beers (The History Press, 2010), or his comments here.
