Baltic Porter - Ale or Lager?

Certainly.There are yeasts ideally suited to brewing ales and lagers.They have been developed over centuries to do to the job.
But like many products they can be used to do other things.Yacht varnish is not only used on yachts and baseball caps are not only worn by players.
To say that a beer becomes an ale because it is brewed using an ale yeast is a non sequitur.

 

What are dolos and pombes?Ales or lagers?

 

The German view as I understand it is that Ales are entirely a British class of beer .

 

Well aware, but when the "Ale" debate springs up, the Weizen debate always seems to come out of the woodwork.

For what it's worth, I'm starting to see some German breweries using "ale" in marketing Weizen. No doubt giving in to the spreading dumbing-down of brewing knowledge.

 

I am still trying to work that one out as an Imperial pint of water weighs 20 ounces.
"A pint of pure water
Weighs a pound and a quarter"
As we were taught at school

 

Or perhaps for a wider market

 

Doesn't that sort of go hand-in-hand with the dumbing down?

Funny, because we were taught:
"A pint a pound
the world around."
Referring to 16 ounces in a pint and a pound (never mind they didn't go into liquid and dry measure... )

 

In the US, certainly by the post-Repeal period, a brewer using terms like"beer" or "lager" and "ale" wasn't necessarily using them to describe all "malt beverages" or the two broad classifications of beers, but just as likely was simply referring to one of their specific brands. Brewers often labeled their beers as simply "_____ Beer" or "_____ Ale" or "____ Lager". Some brewers offered a "Lager" -- and a "Pilsner" and a "Bock" - but calling one of their beers a "Lager" was not meant to suggest their pilsner or their bock weren't also lager beers.

Ale brewers or brewers with extensive portfolio of top-fermenting brews might label some of them "porter" "stout" "India pale ale" and "cream ale" but ALSO have a product simply labeled "____ Ale". The existence of their beer labeled Ale did not suggest they did not consider their porter or their stout "ales", as well.

Questions like "What kind of beer (or lager or ale) is it?" would have been met with puzzlement in the US, pre-craft. Both US-brewed products labeled simply "beer" and "lager" were understood as being AAL's in the vast majority of cases (few all-malt lagers survived), and an "ale" was typically going to be a US golden ale - typically the same color, or a bit more "golden" (rather than "yellow"), as the same brewer's AAL but with higher IBUs and, often, a slightly higher ABV.

 

As always, thanks for your post. Related to the lager/ale debate, as you know (but correct me if I'm wrong), the US brewing industry (and government) would not totally be in sync with the idea that ales are brewed with "ale yeast." A beer brewed with a "lager yeast" at a relatively higher temperature could be an "ale" (or a porter for that matter).

 

A lager beer brewed to a relatively higher alcohol level used to be classified as "Ale."

 

should be a lager if it's made properly

 

Yup - Current US TTB Definition:

For the background, see the pro (and some con) industry articles that pre-date Prohibition in some cases at my page at
Top and bottom fermenting yeast

 

Except for biere de garde, or is that saison?

 

Just an excerpt from a definitive American work ;
"Beer from the Expert's Viewpoint" by Arnold Spencer Wahl and Robert Wahl, 1937, page 150.
"American Porter and Stout. The porter is brewed in at about 15 per cent original extract, the stout from 18 to 21. They are quite dark. They are brewed like the ales but are not dry hopped."

 

ibid. - Page 213-217, discussing their suggested revisions for proposed legal definitions after Repeal in the US:

 

I once read an article that pi was going to be defined legally as 4.
American governments have played fast and loose with "ale"
The problem with lumping things together is that it generates false connections and ideas which are difficult ti unravel.
Ron Pattinsons research over tens of thousands of brewing records show that mild ( an Ale) hardly ever contained any roasted grains. Always the dark colour came from unrefined brewing sugars with perhaps caramel.
Many modern brewers do not realise this and assume the dark colour comes from roasted grains and end up brewing a weak Porter instead.
The difference is quite palpable.

 

Those quotes are suggestions from the US brewers for changes to the US Government's proposed definitions (thus the phrase "...should read..." that prefaces the definitions).

And from another post-Repeal definitive American work:


Turns out the history and the conventions of the brewing industry of United States of America are not the same as those in the United Kingdom...(starting in the Colonial period for a variety of reasons but made definite circa 1776).

 

LOL! This should come as no surprise to anyone.

However, we all no the outcome of U.S. brewing conventions between 1934 and, say, 1990. I'm pretty sure the first Porter I ever tasted was a Sam Smith. Wasn't until Bert Grant opened my eyes to what U.S beer could (should) be.

 

What do you suppose all of these "brewers" and "master brewers" were doing between 1920 and 1933? Selling pencils and apples on the main streets of their towns?

 

Well, not sure the brewmasters themselves are responsible for the "de-evolution" of US beer during that period - they would have gladly continued brewing a greater variety of beer styles if the brewery owners wanted it and the market would have co-operated.

Well, you were living in the wrong section of the country still lots of a few porters surviving in the northeast into the "craft" era - Yuengling, Stegmaier, The Lion, Narragansett & the draught-only Krueger and Ballantine porters. I think Matt might have also had a draught-only porter in its local central NY market - probably a few other examples of that in the greater New England/Mid-Atlantic regions, too.

Brewing in Canada, Mexico or other countries, or still in the US brewing near beer (paying extra attention to the beer before sending it to the dealcoholization unit) or making malt syrup or canned wort.