Winter Beers

This time of year many people turn away from the lighter flavorful beers and turn to strong, dark and rich malty beers. These include Stouts and Porters which for the most part are not as strong as people think. Both Stout and Porter are two traditional British-styled ales that have evolved through the years. Porters actually predate what we know today as Stout. Porter is said to have been popular with transportation workers of London and the name may have come from them. Most traditional British brewing documentation from the 1700’s state that Porter was a blend of three different styles: a new ale (brown or pale ale), a weak one (mild ale), and an old ale (stale or soured), with various combinations of blending and staleness. It may have been the worlds first beer cocktail, catering to the public's taste and over time the original sour taste has all but disappeared in most of the beers.
Porters and Stouts were all considered to be the same 'style' until 1880 when the heavy taxation of malt inspired another brewer to alter his recipe using a portion of unmalted barley that the two styles became distinctly different that we know today. Now, while not 100% accurate I like to say that porters are made bitter with hops and stouts are made bitter using bitter roasted barley. Both styles are flourishing throughout the world with interesting variations brewed in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and the United States.
There are many variations of the Stout beer style. Some are dry and some are sweet, some hoppy and some alcoholic. All have that common characteristic of a roasted flavor that sets them apart from any other style. The roasted grain imparts a uniqueness to the grain and creates flavors ranging from bitter unsweetened chocolate to coffee, to a dry grain astringency. There are Oatmeal Stouts, Export/Foreign Style Stouts, Irish Dry Stouts, Milk Stouts aka Cream Stouts, Russian Imperial Stouts, Oyster Stouts, Barrel Aged Stouts, American Stouts and even stouts that have fruit or spices (such as coffee) added to them. Most with the exception of Russian Imperial Stout are low in alcohol. Guinness is only 3.2% alcohol so the next time a beer rookie gets cross eyed drunk drinking a pint of Guinness you can now give them some major grief for being a lightweight.
The Porter category is not as quite as diverse as the Stout category. There are Brown Porters, Robust Porters and Papago's favorite, Baltic Porter which category our El Robusto Porter generally falls into. When thinking of Porters most people probably think of black Robust Porters although Brown Porters probably predate them. Baltic Porters came along much later and were relatively unknown of here until a few years ago. Few beers fit the season like a Baltic porter does winter and early spring. They are the siblings of the Russian Imperial Stouts. As the name suggests Baltic Porters emanated from the Baltic countries and are very popular in Sweden and Poland and the other Baltic countries. They range in color from mahogany red to pitch black, and pack a substantial dose of flavor and alcohol. These strong beers can approach barley wines in strength and Imperial stouts in complexity. They have many layers of flavors. From sweet soothing maltiness to flavors that are winey, coffee like, chocolate like and may have licorice notes. All the flavors should co-mingle into a smooth flavor that is robust. Hence El Robusto. I think one day the category may get subdivided as some Baltic Porters are top fermented ales while others are bottom fermented lagers which is something that I don't think any other beer style has. Generally speaking, Slavic and Baltic breweries produce strong porters as bottom-fermented lagers that resemble bocks in strength and flavor. Scandinavian brewers use top fermentation and their porters retain the dark roasted malt character. El Robusto is top fermented.
Other than El Robusto if you would like to try some of the actual European ones we carry a couple of the European standard bearers. Okocim Porter which comes from Poland is bottom fermented and has 8.1% alcohol. Another excellent Polish beer is Zywiec Porter which is really one of the big boys coming in at 9.3% alcohol.
Prost, Ron