Stout or Porter?

I'll let him answer, but essentially ^^^^^ this.

Same goes for saisons and grisettes in the Belgian tradition.

 

Would love to see evidence that the terms Burton Ale and grisette have significantly more meaning today than in the first half of the 20th century.

 

Don't know about Burton Ale, but I think grisette does. Well, at least in the circles that I travel. I think that more non-Belgians have an idea of what grisette means, so there's that.

 

Michael Jackson is to blame.
This is t-shirt perfect.

 

This question is an example of why the style classification system needs overhauling. Styles can be defined by; country/region of origin, flavor, color, contents, brewing method, target market (RIS, IPA), ABV, IBU, etc. With so many criteria we've ended up with a seemingly endless number of various combinations. The current classification system is not even a system, it's a mess.

I am advocating for a tiered and consistent style classification system, where brewing method is the primary criteria, and where there would be no more than 20 primary styles, with 0 to 5 sub-styles each. For instance, Porter would be a primary style, with stouts and perhaps browns as sub-styles. Another top level style could be Pale Ale, with IPA being a sub-style. I don't care about color, ABV, target market, country of origin, etc. Let the beer style define the beer.

As to the question in this thread, I have had several porters that most people would call a stout, and vice versa. If there ever was a distinct difference, it is long gone since at least in the US it is up to the brewer.

 

What would be considered high gravity enough to be moved to the stout distinction?

I don't know much about gravity ratings in beer, but if it has to do with ABV, would Black Tuesday or Tweak fall into the stout category?

 

No one has brought up Imperial Porters....
What blurred lines?

 

Yeah. Like the Anniversary beers from Deschutes. They're all Porters.

 

New Albion did that too. I wish I had a tardis so I could revisit them.

 

I pretty much gave up trying to distingish differences as each brewer just calls them what they want anyway. Just assume among all the stouts and porters brewed, you wont be able to tell clear differences so lump them into 1 group in your mind and enjoy the sampling, and repeat the ones you really like.

 

I think SN had 2 recipes for a Stout/Porter but could not decide which one to sell. they brewed them both called one a Stout and the other one a Porter.

 

you stepped in it now boy-o

 

I just refer to all of them as stout porters, because unless it's a session beer that's pretty much what they are. And if I was a commercial brewer I would do the same thing. Besides educating the populace, it would also stand out.

 

Dry stout is good year round. I prefer Murphys. Porter is in most cases to me a sweet cloying mess and only good in small doses. Imperial and BBA stout is too good on a bitching cold day after work. The booze helps cut through the sweetness and...what was the question again??!

 

In the past that distinction was never static over time, and today it's somewhat nonexistent. Very generally speaking, you wouldn't be totally off if you thought of porters in the past at around 5% (but at times they could get as low as 2%) and stouts occupying the space above that. The ABV range of stouts at a given time was generally larger because you used to have single/regular stout, double stout, and imperial with increasing potency. Imperial could hit double digits... but I doubt that stouts in the past ever got as high (or close) as Black Tuesday (someone should chime in if I'm wrong). Keep in mind that Guinness Draught, an iconic beer today, is widely thought of as a stout now and it's 4.2%. There are always folks who post in these threads who have their craft blinders on. Taking your question about Black Tuesday seriously (can't 100% tell if you're being sincere), if 19% can't qualify as a stout then I don't know what would. In my eyes, it's still a porter though (as all stout porters are). I'm gonna contradict myself and add a disclaimer: if someone considered it a stout, they'd have to be fine with categorizing a modern barrel aged beer according to its base. Sorry for the long answer.

 

And I'd be the first to bitch if I couldn't taste a smidgen of the base beer. That's me at my basest.

 

Stout. The Russian one.

 

Courage.

 

NEXT BIG THING! Instead of black-and-tan, we have black-and-....black?

What's your favourite Stout / Porter mix?