Porter vs. Stout

You will get many responses that begin with "to me..." and "in my opinion...".
Ignore those.

There have been many threads on this exact topic already if you'd care to do a search.

 

A stout is an imperial porter.

 

My point is you called a bunch of people fools based on comments about a beer that you've never even tried. Maybe you have a bunch of fools for friends, but that's not what you said. You made a baseless assumption about people commenting in a thread. And you comment still boils down to insulting people for having different taste than you.

 

Same beer. Just that "porter" happened to be a stout made by the Porters.

 

At this point, the brewer's discretion.

 

por·ter
ˈ
noun

1. 1.
   a person employed to carry luggage and other loads, especially in a railroad station, airport, or hotel.

stout

noun

1. 1.
   a kind of strong, dark beer brewed with roasted malt or barley.

 

SN Stout and Porter are different from each other but no more so than Torpedo and Celebration are from each other.

 

Right. If you are going to offer 'both', then it behooves you to make them different enough so that they don't compete directly in that way.

Just to add to the confusion, though- at one point in time, many beer judge types would argue that SN Stout was really a porter, because of the black patent malt (iow- no black barley) and high usage of hops. Sometimes you just can't win .

 

That's what I always thought but stouts and porters both have low and high ABV examples.

5.9% Porter: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/90/
10% Porter: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/199/48505/

6% Stout: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/418/3434/
10.6% Stout: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/147/1160/

I have noticed that there isn't an "Imperial Porter" category on here. Maybe there ought to be one.

 

The variance within either style is significantly greater than the difference between the two styles. They overlap each other so much that there is no reliable meaning for the consumer to one label versus the other.

 

Porters always seem rather thin and "flat" to me if you will; Whereas, I find stouts to be more well carbonated and thicker. As for taste, the two are always very similar (coffee, chocolate, roasted malts) but mouthfeel is definitely different (IMHO). That's not to say this is always the case, as someone already mentioned Founders' Porter is a good example of this, but more so than not I see a difference in carbonation.

 

My understanding is that stouts are brewed using black patent malt and porters are not.

 

That's not the case with IDS or American stouts. While I don't think thickness has anything to do with it, RIS does fit your description.

 

There are many "definitions" such as the use of roasted barley in stouts.It's difficult to find out where these myths arose. Stout and Porter pre date black patent malt and roasted barley by a very long time indeed.

 

In my limited research I have not found a definitive answer on the subject. In almost all cases, they taste pretty much the same to me. Now if we were talking Imperial Stouts, then yea, the stout is a little "thicker", a litte high abv etc etc.

 

What about imperial porters?

 

Quoted for irony.



Did anyone mention stout is short for stout porter? Oh, ten times? Okay.

 

So I'm a fool if I don't like it and a sheep if I do? Guess I'll just pass...

 

Is it just me, or do others get a hint of bacon in porters that isn't there in stouts?

 

This tread topic doesn't automatically.......................yet?