The American Distinction

Mayflower Porter is my personal favorite....I like a hint of smoke in my porters

Dragoon makes a Mesquite smoked porter which is amazing as well
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/28873/88659/

 

Ron,

Was the Export India Porter brewed by The Kernel Brewery brewed per your recipe?

http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/23249/69303/

Cheers!

Jack

 

Deschutes Black Butte Porter is a good example, in my opinion.

Also, it's off topic, @SovietBillCosby but that a beautiful duck! what kind is it?

 

Odell Cutthroat for me, but Black Butte would work fine as well.

 

Probably. He's used my recipes before.

 

I'd suggest the quintessential American beer style is the "punch you in the face hoppy bitter IPA."

No one was making that until the west coast guys did.

When I drink a Stone IPA or a Lagunitas IPA I know it's an American IPA. Right away.

And then I give thanks.

 

To me, there are a lot of stouts that drink like porters but not many porters that drink like stouts.

 

Alot of people for some reason, are focusing on the last sentence with the word "Porter" in it which the O.P. used as a style example. I'm going old school with these very few examples, and IMO, they're foundations of the style here in the U.S.:

Sierra Nevada - Pale Ale
Ballantine - IPA
Russian River - Pliny the Elder
Anchor Brewing - Old Foghorn / Sierra Nevada - Bigfoot

 

Chicha and pumpkin beers are the only truly American styles I can think of.

 

That's because stouts and porters are precisely the same thing.Initially they were all just called Porters , then the stronger ones were Stout Porters then simply Stouts. Same grain bill, less water.After WW1 the difference disappeared altogether , many Porters were rebadged as Stouts and the name Porter was used less and less. So we get a situation now when many Porters are stronger than many Stouts. Fuller's for example brew London Porter at 5.4% ABV and Black Cab Stout at 4.5% ABV.

 

give me a black butte quickly!

 

Cream Ale, Kentucky Common, California Common, Classic American Pilsner? If those have roots too firmly planted in European brewing, consider Tiswin.

 

Root Beer and other Sassafras or Sarsparilla based beverages, also quite possibly, Spruce beer.

 

For me the problem with your question is not whether there are discernable taste differences between styles (e.g., APA, IPA), but rather it is the hidden assumption that it is flavors and aromas which account for the naming and/or differentiatiation between styles. But those are ultimatly based not on flavors and aromas but upon being brewed to certain objective specifications and may have have a particular subset of flavors and aromas that is similar to others. Yes each has a currently recognized example that stands out, but that is still happening within the parameters set by the style characteristics.

So I'd say it's kind of like this. I can use a chicken stew recipe but use rattlesnake meat instead of chicken. If the meat has been properly prepared you'll pick up flavors and aromas that remind you of chicken, but that won't convert the rattlesnake stew into a chicken stew. (Nor will it make the snake a chicken. )

 

Think of beer styles as a spectrum. There are way-points along the spectrum of color, IBU, ABV, maltiness, etc. where a prototype of a style firmly lays. The gap between these way-points is where the lines get blurred and you could say that a particular beer may or may not lean one way more so than the other. For example, you could easily cal Nug Nectar an IPA, or an Amber. Neither would be absolutely correct, nor absolutely incorrect. Its more of an Amber-IPA, which is not a style in and of itself, but a logical hybrid. If all we had were prototypes of styles, we would have no need for so many different brewers. Playing all over the spectrum is what allows such tremendous variety.

 

It's worth remembering that what we call styles originated as simple names. Often these were used interchangeably , so in one sentence one major brewer referred to the same beer as a Pale Ale , IPA and a bitter.These beers in any case , nobody brews an IPA remotely like one shipped to India (and these changed markedly during this period) ; my grandfather's Mild was 6% , pale and highly hopped. So there simply isn't a fixed point or even a prototype for many beers.

 

Yes, but you left out the variables of time, place, and brewer intent. @marquis is always reminding us of these variables that greatly complicate what a beer style is. Imagining beer styles as a 2-dimensional spectrum or web is actually too simplistic, because styles are always evolving over time and place like a moving tesseract such that this statement becomes impossible...

 

I think Bell's makes an outstanding porter as well.