Almanac Beer Co. Sour Porter article

I just got the Almanac Sour Porter today as part of a trade along with another Almanac beer, Barrel Noir. I'm excited to try it tonight.

 

Pretty interesting article. I enjoy stouts and porters and this one sounds really interesting. Will definitely pick up a bottle if I see it!

 

Yeah from what I have read most English ales had some acidity from the wood that they fermented in. Old Ales especially had a tart bite to them from what I have read.

Wasn't Porter a blend originally? I thought I read that somewhere. A blend of a dark ale and a stale ale, and that a bartender would blend the beers before serving them. Almost like a braggot in its original form. Something like that. I may be wrong.

 

Great article and a great beer as well!

 

It was a large wooden vat that collapsed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meux's_Brewery

 

~
sour porter, for a long time I thought that was a waste of a porter

 

Nice beer, and nice article.

 

I think they're wrong. Porter was never sour the way Guieze is. There may have been a little tartness in aged Porter, but not out and out sourness. British strains of Brettanomyces don't produce huge amounts of acidity.

We don't need to guess about the level of acisity, because there are plenty of analyses from the 19th century. British Medical Journal June 25th 1870, page 658 has analysese of several London Porters. The acidity level varies from 0.16% to 0.24%. Lambiks analysed in the 19th century had between 1.06 and 1.19% acidity.

 

Porter wasn't emulating a blend of three beers. That story comes from a 19th-centiury misinterptratation of an 18th-century text. This was in a letter wrtten by Obadiah Poundage to a magazine in 1860:

"They began to hop their mild beer more and the Publican started three, four, sometimes six butts at once, but so little idea had the brewer or his customers incurring the charge of great stocks of beer, that some moneyed people made a trade of purchasing their hopped beers at the first hand, keeping them sometime and when stale to dispose of the same to Publicans for £1/5/- per barrel and £1/6/- per barrel."

It's the meaning of "started" that's important. The 19th-century misinterpretation took this to mean tapped. It actually means laying down to mature.

 

I bought one of these the other day. Looking forward to trying it.

 

Hello! Jesse from Almanac Beer here. I just wanted to say that a thread is awesome. That is all.

 

Keep up the good work. More like the Heirloom pumpkin and dogpatch please

 

Yes. Make more of everything. And send it to NY. With an awesome wholesaler. I know one. lol

 

this beer is legit, i didnt think i was going to dig this as much as their previous sours, but now this is my favorite. There is a fantastic balance bewteen the roastiness and sourness that i did not think existed (came close with funk metal) and this one nailed it! for now atleast, i think this one is ready to go now, not sure age will improve this one, especially with its current perfect balance

 

This beer was great when I tried a sample, excited to see how the finished bottles are. Can't wait for the new batch of Dogpatch and the next farmer's reserve!

 

im excited as hell for those as well!

ive had a few bottles of the bourbon sour porter..its great stuff! first few sips i tried i said WTF? but once i got used to it i really started to like it

 

Can't wait to try it when our buddy is back in town, thanks!

 

The very fact that dark and stale ales are mentioned mitigates against it being true,porters weren't ales but beers.Ale brewers and beer brewers were entirly separate groups.