Porter vs. Stout

good reads if your into beer history

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/...rter-and-stout.html?showComment=1184093820000
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/the-forgotten-story-of-londons-porters/
http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/stout-v-porter-a-northern-perspective/
http://greatbrewers.com/blog/rch/beer-mythbusting-truth-about-porter-and-stout
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5445569787371915337&postID=5239464569029076329
http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2010/02/difference-between-stout-and-porter.html

 

It is? There is no difference. Stout is short for stout porter.

 

Stout, Porter, Pale ale, india pale ale....what's in a name?

 

Umm, people are fools because they don't enjoy a beer that you happen to like? The stone coffee milk stout is boring, and compared to the stouts I enjoy, it tastes thin and watered down. My opinion is that all of the praise that beer is getting is because people are sheep and anything that says stone on the bottle has to be good.

 

Historically mild was young Ale and Porter was a Beer.Ales and Beers were two distinct families brewed by separate companies with their own trade associations and even barrel sizes.The past was a foreign country, they did things differently then.Using modern meanings of brewing words when looking at material from the past leads to false conclusions.

 

BJCP guidelines could tell you what the differences should be, but I think 9 times out of 10 it is a marketing decision. Name A + porter or Name A + stout.... which will sell more barrels?

 

I tend to expect more color highlights (garnet, dark brown, amber etc) when I hold a porter up to the light in a glass whereas I like my stouts to be so black that they make the whole room darker.
As to smell I expect more coffee, char, or lactic notes in a stout. In a porter I am more open to dark fruit. I see toffee, vanilla, nuts and caramel character to overlap.
Now according to the BJCP fruity esters are optional in an American Stout style and should be moderate to none in either but if I was one of the marketing folk making this call I am more tolerant of fruit flavor in a porter than I am of the same in a stout. The malt presence should be sturdy in both and hops should not be over strong but may certainly be present in both styles. Similarly I am more tolerant of char, wood, and acrid coffee flavors in a stout. (Although you can have it in either).
I am also more forgiving of a thinner mouthfeel in a porter although I am looking for "silky" in either.

For the record I am assuming we are talking about the sub styles of robust porters and American stouts and these are merely my preferences.

 

It's been a while since I saw a good stout vs porter debate! Let's do it again! (website search is your friend, FWIW)

Agreed. I think it's interesting how this community has come a long over the years in its understanding of porters vs stouts. If you asked this question 5 years ago the majority of posters would have insisted there is a difference and stated a myriad of defining characteristics...many of which would contradict other people's defining characteristics. Further, whatever defining characteristics someone chose there were always well known commercial porter/stout exceptions that could be pointed out. Now most people have a more nuanced and IMO more accurate understanding of porter and stout classifications by history and current usage.

Sort of, and this argument comes up often in these discussions. However, BJCP defines specific beer classifications (e.g. russian imperial stout, baltic porter, milk stout, etc.) but you will not find a BJCP definition of simply "stout" and "porter" by themselves. Some people infer a difference between stouts and porters based on BJCP's sub-classifications, but that's still individual interpretation.

 

What's it matter? They both taste great.

 

Bourbon County Brand Porter
Edmund Fitzgerald Stout

 

yea, of course. But porter was aged. then. and I was paraphrasing Ron's book without just copying it.

its why I posted those older threads. its more complicated than a 5 line answer. I get it.

 

And the BJCP makes no claim to be an authority on beer styles. It's a set of guidelines for homebrewing competitions.

 

I really think it's one of those cases where very similar things originated in two different ways.

 

Did I say I've even had it? I'm hardly a Stone fanboy either. Point was people have perceptions of what a style "should" taste like when in fact there is wide variation within that category. People are fools because all to often these days they associate the stout style with big, higher abv beers and dismiss the rest

 

oh, so you're calling people fools for voicing an opinion on something you haven't even tried? Glad you cleared up that you have no idea what you're talking about and you are just blowing hot air. Why don't you try it before you insult people? Who knows, you might find it thin and watered down yourself.

 

So what do you have to say about chocolate milk stouts? http://www.beeradvocate.com/search/?q=chocolate+milk&qt=beer
...or are those all the modern commercial examples that you don't want to call out?

I don't mean to pick on you, your post just highlights the problem of trying to define porters or stouts separately, but you're not alone. I just find that whatever characteristic one chooses to differentiate them (IBU, malts, roasting, color, etc.), there will be many well-known counter examples. It's futile.

I think we as a community in general try hard to define our beer so that we can discuss it with each other, which makes total sense and is useful. However, sometimes in our drive to define we confuse matters worse. I think this is most obvious in this stout vs. porter debate, but it's also apparent in discussions of "pale ales vs IPAs vs session IPAs," or "DIPA vs barleywine vs triple IPA," or "wheat vs wit vs white ales"... sometimes people need to lay off the classifications and their inherent expectations and let the beer speak more for itself.

 

I really don't think you get the point. It goes far beyond the Stone example. Just the other day a friend called 4 Hands Chocolate milk stout to light and lacking flavor for him and was comparing it to much bigger stouts. Yea they are all stouts but not even comparable. Same with people comparing lighter IPAs to huge 10% hop bombs, or when people claim a certain sour isn't sour enough. Not all beers are about being the biggest, baddest kid on the block

 

Biggest difference?

stout has two "t's" and porter has one.

 

No offense taken, and I understand and don't necessarily disagree with your position either. I understand the history of how the terms originated. I also understand that there are a lot of commercial examples that fall outside of the paradigm I used. My point is simply this - if I made two beers with the same yeast, base malt bill, and hop profile, the only difference being that one beer used chocolate malt and the other roasted barley with maybe some black patent, and I asked knowledgeable beer drinkers to tell me which was the stout and which was the porter, I think most would identify the one with chocolate malt as the porter and the one with roasted barley as the stout.

 

Your observation probably jives with how professional brewers would often label their beers too... it's certainly an observable trend. I would just caution that a trend does not make a rule [and when you make rules you make expectations].

Or another way to think about the issue, it would be tragically unfair to a stout/porter and the brewer if people are tasting the beer and thinking along the lines of... "this stout is a really good beer, but it tastes too much like a porter [or vise-versa], therefore I'm rating it lower."