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! 18th century London! Cockney labourers dine on oysters 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, lowers 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
• Vancouver Island 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!
SIX MUST-TRY B.C. PORTERS
Driftwood Brewery, Blackstone Porter
Abandoned Rail Brewing, Bellhop Porter
Mount Arrowsmith Brewing, Low Pressure Porter
Gladstone Brewing, Porter
Four Winds Brewing, Oat Porter
Salt Spring Brewing, Dry Porter
—Beer picks by Joe Wiebe
