Porter-Stout

PORTER-STOUT & the Rise of Guinness.

A TALE OF THREE (OR FOUR) MALTS

The story of beer is largely a story of technological improvement, primarily in the handling of malt. Case in point the rise and fall of Porter, the birth of Stout and the rise and rise of Guinness.

In the early 18th century there were three primary beverages vying for supremacy in England. There was Ale and Beer-- ale was unhopped, or only very lightly
hopped. Beer, which was hopped more heavily and was usually less alcoholic. These were reddish brown brews, made at a variety of ABV levels, from Old Ale at about 9º Alc to Small Beer at about 2.5º. In an age when water was usually not safe to drink, especially in towns and cities, Small Beer was the safer solution because the alcohol killed the germs.

However, two newcomers were altering the beverage landscape beyond all recognition. The first was Tea, which had become a national craze. Tea imports
soared from virtually nothing in 1650 to 240,000 pounds by 1708. The tea of the time was called Congou, and it was dark, very strongly flavored, and high in caffeine. It was regarded by the Chinese as very low grade tea, and therefore suitable for export. To make it drinkable, the English sweetened it with sugar and buffered the harsh tannins with milk. Sugar consumption in England soared and slavery and the sugar plantation economies of the West Indies soared along with it.

The other new drink was Gin. Initially brought in from Holland after William of Orange became King in 1688. William was Dutch and he wanted to help his native country, so he raised taxes on brandies, and broke the monopoly of the London Guild of Distillers in 1690. That opened the floodgates, literally. Because while imports of Dutch Genever rose, the English turned to distilling poor quality grain into cheap gin. Home stills sprouted all over southern England and the progress towards the style we know today as “London Dry” Gin began. By 1740 Gin production had far outpaced that of beer and Gin had become the booze of choice for the poor. London had 15,000 drink shops by mid-century and more than half were Gin mills. The famous slogan “Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence and straw for free” was coined at this time. The straw, by the way, was there for the dead drunk to lie on as they slept it off. The popular way of drinking the harsh, often adulterated gin of this era was to pour it over a sugar cube, another way of satisfying the English craving for sweetness and another huge boost for the slavery-powered, sugar industry that was making the first industrial era fortunes in the West Indies.

But the brewing industry was responding to these challenges. A new style of beer-- it was hopped-- had been born in the 1720s, and it soon become popular with the relatively well paid crew of “Porters” who lugged stuff around at London’s many markets. As a result this dark, hefty brew was called Porter. At this point it was brewed from brown malts, kindled over wood fires which gave it a smoky palate that had to be cleansed away by as much as ten months in cask. These beers were strong-- probably 7º ABV, had some hopping, and were a dark reddish brown color in a glass, though they were mostly drunk in clay and pewter mugs, so clarity wasn’t all that important. We should note that malting was still pretty mediaeval as far as technology was concerned. Brown Malts were all there were and the degree of smokiness depended on the wood used, hornbeam (ironwood) was preferred, but anything to hand would be used in a pinch. Straw was better and ultimately replaced the wood because it imparted much less smokiness to the malt.

London was growing rapidly by the middle of the 18th century and the consumption of Gin finally began to subside around the same time. Lots of anti-Gin legislation was passed by Parliament, but a steady rise in the cost of grain had even more of an effect. Poor harvests in this period raised food costs and lowered wages and eventually in 1757 the British government temporarily banned the manufacture of spirits, especially Gin, from domestically grown grain in an attempt to keep food prices down.

Meanwhile the brewing industry in London had become a full fledged industrial activity, with large breweries producing 50-100,000 hectolitres of beer a year. By the end of the 18th century Whitbread had become the national leader and was making more than 300,000 hectolitres of beer a year. No other brewery in the world came anywhere close. The leading brews were small beer, of course, and Porter, which was by far the most popular style in London.

As brewers adopted new technology so they became savvier about their
product . The thermometer was introduced first, sometime around 1760, allowing for much more control over key parts of the brewing process. It was followed by the hydrometer around 1770. Brewers were now able to see how much fermentable material they got out of a pound of any kind of malt. And they saw immediately that the brown malts they were using for Porter provided less fermentable material than paler malts, kilned at lower temperatures.

The adoption of coke fired kilns brought on major changes. Coke-- coal cooked anaerobically to remove sulfur and impurities-- had been in use for iron making since early in the 18th century, but by 1750 it was cheaper than charcoal, and when burned produced very little smoke. Combined with the thermometer it allowed for a huge advance in kilning technique. Pale malts became much less expensive.

Porter changed dramatically. Brown malts were dropped in favor of Pale malts, and to keep the dark color and the bitter flavors intrinsic to the brew, some Black malt, sometimes just roasted barley, not even malted, was added. During the Napoleonic wars the tax on Malt was raised. This increased the shift away from Brown malts to Pale malts, and colorings were added to keep the brew dark. This was an age of adulteration. Food was fair game for chemical additives, including lead, sulfuric acid, all kinds of poisons. There were no regulatory agencies and little understanding of the effects. But as the public grew wary of these practises the larger brewers sought a way to produce a quality, but profitable product. However, it was only after Napoleon had finally been beaten at Waterloo that the brewers found their hand forced. A law was passed allowing only malt and hops to be used in brewing beer. A year later Wheeler patented his very dark, Black Patent Malt, which was malt roasted in a rotating drum, allowing the malt to be heated to higher temperatures without burning it. Soon, the brewers moved to recipes that were dominated by Pale Malts, with some Brown Malt for flavoring and about 5% Black Patent Malt for coloring.