Stout or Porter?

God willing I will be there to see that happen. Cheers sir.

 

Porter/Stout.

 

Isn't it pretty much the same as the APA/IPA?

APA => IPA => Imperial/Double IPA
Porter => Stout => Imperial Stout

 

In the sense that APA,IPA and Double IPA are all Pale Ales and Stout and Imperial Stout are all Porters yes.

 

In fact, the term stout has been around the beer scene since more than two centuries before 1880. Additionally, the word stout was used to describe beer well before the word porter came around.

 

As an adjective or as a beer "style"? My mother-in-law was (rest her soul) stout.

 

Unlike APA, IPA, and DIPA styles, you will have a very hard time finding any current officially recognized beer classifications (e.g. BJCP, GABF, etc.) that separate porter and stout from each other that way, or define them singularly at all. Official beer classifications separate sub-styles with "porter" or "stout" in the name (e.g. Baltic porter, Irish Stout, brown porter, Russian Imperial Stout, etc.), but that's different from people arguing a difference between just "porter" and "stout" as stand-alone terms. If official classifications aren't separating these very old terms, then there's a good reason - which is there is no difference in current practice.

In fairness to you there is a very general trend for brewers with multiple dark beers in their portfolio to name the weaker, lighter one a porter; but there are way too many exceptions and lack of consistency to call it a rule.

 

essentially yes.

 

Stouts for sure.

 

Personally I am fond of stouts. I really enjoy the higher abv regardless of some people calling it boozy. Stouts have more weigh to them and have deeper favor, whenever I drink a porter it seems like almost there just not quite. Instead of Black porters are brown and bit more watery and lower abv. I know they are good beers, just personally I feel a little disappointed when I drink a porters.

 

Often these reoccurring porter/stout threads concentrate on the history of the style(s) in the UK, ignoring the long US brewing industry history of the beers. While, obviously, the US ale and porter breweries -and, unlike in the UK, it was ale brewers which primarily brewed porter - were begun by brewers from the UK (but not always - as the third brewer listed in the below ad shows) the histories of the top fermenting brews of the two nations certainly "split" by mid-19th century.

Many US ale brewers by the 1870s and 1880s offered both "Brown Stout" and "Porter" in the portfolios, as just a sampling of PA ads reveal:

And it was already becoming common, though not universal, in the US for some in the brewing industry to refer to porter and stout as "ales" (maybe that was just easily than saying "top fermenting beers").

It was also not uncommon for lager brewers to offer porters and, possibly, ferment them with their house lager yeast, which became even more widespread, especially in Pennsylvania- the heart of US porter brewing (see last image below), after Repeal.

Post-Repeal, both the Feds and the brewing industry of the US had separate definitions (vague as they are - the main difference pretty much being degree of darkness) for "porter" and "stout":

So, while it might be termed a "trend", here in the USA, it's been a long one.

Also, unlike in the UK:

...there were scores of porters in the US after Repeal, many more than the handful of US-brewed stouts that existed before the "Craft era".

 

@jesskidden I was referring current naming practice. I'm not sure if you trying to argue with me, or just add some historical context. As always I appreciate the plethora of historical information you always bring to discussions, which in this case reinforces what's been said that historically there was a difference between porters and stouts. It's no surprise that there are still echoes of that history. However, currently the trend is far too weak to make any definitive rules based on ABV, roast, adjuncts, etc. which some purport. And I'm fairly certain from past comments you've made that you would agree.

 

For those of you interested in the difference of American brewed Porters and Stouts at the turn of the century (circa 1900) below is from the book American Handy-Book of the Brewing, Malting and Auxiliary Trades by Robert Wahl & Max Henius, 1902”

“The mashing method and general treatment of porter and stout are the same as for stock ale.

Hops. – Porter, one and one-quarter pounds per barrel; stout two and one-half pounds per barrel. Added in the same manner as to stock ale. Sugar (if used) to the amount of 25 per cent, added in the kettle 30 minutes before running out. Porter, 13 per cent Balling strong.; stout, from 16 to 18 per cent Balling.”

From the above it would appear that ‘back in the day’ American brewed Stouts were of higher ABV and hoppier than Porters.

What is it they say on those TV ads for investment? “Past performance is not indicative of future results.”

Cheers!

 

Yet Wahl and Wahl in 1937 wrote about the difference between Ale and Stout;
"“Differences in Ale and Stout Brewing
The difference in the production of ale and stout consists mainly in the characteristics of the malt and in the treatment of the product after fermentation, ale being produced from pale, or low kiln-dried malt, stout from a mixture of pale malt, caramel malt, and black malt."

 

It was definitely more of adjective, as previously mentioned in this thread, since the idea of styles is a more modern development. Stout was used to describe the strongest beers of any color or style. They didn't even need to be dark beers. It is very similar to the current trend of session beers. It is an adjective used to describe sessionable beers of any style, but it kind of has a higher meaning as well, and I would imagine that session IPAs could eventually be added as a separate style.

 

And, in the same book, they also suggested changing those US Federal FAA definition I quoted above to (my highlighting):


While the Wahls were recognized as US brewing authorities, their beliefs were not always accepted by everyone in the US. They also felt that lagers and ales should not be defined by the type of yeast - bottom/top fermented - used. Something that is still controversial (probably more so) today.

 

My opinion is that the stout/porter terms have shifted in meaning over the years. Stout may have originally referred to stout porter, or strong porter, but now it distinguishes two similar beers made from the same brewer. The Sierra Nevada example shows that it allows a brewer to tweak a recipe and brand multiple beers that have many overlapping characteristics.

I would be hard pressed to find an example where a brewery's stout wasn't: higher abv; roastier; hoppier; thicker; given more flavouring.

 

You're not sure? Me, neither! Yeah, US "historical context"in particular because too often these threads center on UK history and then jump to the early US craft brewers like New Albion, Boulder and Sierra Nevada. I simply used your "very general trend" comment as a reason to jump in after 3+ pages.

I guess I would say the trend is away from the traditional "stout is darker, hoppier and stronger than porter" definition. It is funny that "style inflation" has only increased the beers brewed outside the rather loose criteria of most of those styles - but that is understandable from a marketing viewpoint and, after all, is how "styles" are created. The late 19th century US creators of "American Adjunct Lagers" thought they were brewing Bohemian lagers/Pilsners.

It is curious that so many of the early craft brewers looked to the UK as inspiration (perfectly understandably, considered the state of the US industry other than AAL by then) yet it was the US which still had a hoppy, aged, high abv IPA (dare I use "traditional"?) and a number of porters still on the shelves - well, some regional shelves, using near the bottom - at the time.

 

I certainly agree about the yeast.Ales,beers and lagers were brewed for centuries without knowledge of yeast.The type of yeast resulted from brewing conditions.They did not determine the sort of beer , that was the result of brewing conditions and fermentable ingredients.
It would be entirely possible using genetic engineering to develop a bottom fermenting yeast for ale and stout brewing which could work at higher temperatures.
Of course, in Germany lager is a process not a beer type. If a beer has been lagered it qualifies.So Kolsch is a lager although top fermented because its creators say so.

An example of a label from a top fermented lagerbeer.
I suspect that the inclusion of porter into ales was a convenience. Porter brewing was on the wane and breweries began to brew lagers as well as ales.Porter would be brewed in the same way as an ale and eventually as an ale.
This may seem a little pedantic but I and others have noticed that many recent so-called milds are dark because of the use of roasted grains (as in Stout/Porter) rather than dark sugars and/or caramel. This is because the brewers do not know of the different brewing industries which created the styles.

 

Me too! I think the higher abv is where things start to change a little. I am baking bread so bear with me. There is a descriptor. highly roasted as opposed to roasted. That is a difference in bitterness, in flavor and mouthefeel. In bread there is a difference between smooth and satiny let's say. The part about @jesskidden ' s post is that the use of adjunct or sugar alone cannot , well should not, change the style definition. What can change that just enough to warrant a different word is the abv and the resulting changes to all the other categories because of that.