With some traditional ingredients and amounts, sure. But your right, after a while it just gets silly.
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Originally Posted by chumprock
I had a friend ask me why all my beers lately are milds, bitters, and esb's. And while part of it is based on my trip to the UK this spring, the simple fact is I can sit home and drink a few of them and not fall out of my chair.
Sounds like you need a more sturdy drinking chair.
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My understanding is that a stout is basically a stronger porter. The word stout was an adjective that just meant stronger. So a brewery might make a porter and then produce a stronger stout version of their porter. Centuries ago there were no clear guidelines so each stout was brewery specific, and one brewery's porter might be stronger then another brewery's stout.
Generally stouts are heavier then porters, but there is a large overlap between weaker stouts and stronger porters. So while a stout might be stronger on average, the strongest porters are stronger then the weakest stouts.
I have noticed that a lot of porter recipes tend to utilize hop's in a greater variety of ways than do stouts, and often can have a decent amount of hop presence/bitterness....American and Robust porters usually seem to have flavor and aroma additions....I haven't really seen that in stout recipes so much. Stouts seem to push the roasty element forward and leave the hop bitterness element back. It makes sense because they are competing forms of "bitter".
My favorite porters are malty, smooth, with chocolate notes and some hop flavor/aroma....Sierra Nevada's Porter is a beautiful example of a robust porter (you all must try this beer sometime, even if you're not that into SN brews....I think their porter really shines). The Brown Porter I like is Samuel Smith's.....I have yet to try a baltic porter.
OK, going off topic a moment. I agree though. I rarely buy American craft beers any more for this reason. They seem to be more about "More of everything" than they are about balance and taste. I'd rather have a brew that was trying to get it right rather than trying to get it bigger.
+1. At the risk of flying way off-topic, I think someone needs to start an "anti-Imperialism" movement.
Bigger is NOT better, and less is more. A simple sandwich in France is a joy, and in the US they think they need 1/2 pound of meat when the real problem is that the bread is ****e. Chicago-style pizza is designed to overdo a bunch of stuff (sauce, cheese, meat) to make up for a boring, grease-soaked, tasteless crust. Chicago-style hotdogs... you need all that crap on top because you have to hide the tasteless, bland wiener.
(This is my first post, so be easy). I am on my second try (BG2 as I call it). Both tries have produced great beers but neither with the complexity and "burnt sugar" taste that I remember. I am working off a list of ingredients that I found last year on a forgotten site- (Serving Temperature: 50-55 F; Int'l Bittering Units: 25.0; Alcohol by Volume: 3.8%; Malts: Pale, Caramel, Chocolate, Wheat, Peated; Hops: Willamette). I am guessing at amounts and altering per try.
The first batch was 8oz UK Peated Malt, 1lb UK Crystal 60L (Caramel), 1lb UK Chocolate 340-450L, 1lb (American) Wheat 2L, 3lbs Briess Sparkling Amber dry malt ext (I wasn't sure if it would have enough alcohol so I kicked this in). Willamette yeast. This turned out a great smoky porter, but not Bert Grant's Perfect.
The second try (BG2) is definitely closer. I halved the chocolate and doubled the crystal. The caramel is more pronounced and the color is closer, but it is still missing what I call the "burnt sugar" taste I remember from BG Perfect Porter. Also, I remember the Perfect Porter having a clearer almost brown/red tint to it. Any suggestions on how to get this right?
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I am also looking for a clone recipe for Bert Grant's Perfect Porter. I did find a recipe for historical Porter recipe's at the followinging link. But have not tried it yet.
I don't know if you are looking for a great session beer or a great porter. I make a stout that I call the Dark Knight, that really is a great beer. Roasty in the beginning and then after a month it comes out smooth as silk and absolutely delicious.
I have done three versions of this beer, each slightly different or with S-04 yeast. The constants are the chocolate, roasted barley and black patent. This version is a little light in color compared with one of the versions where it came out to like 50 SRM. If I didn't add the Roasted Barley, you could almost call this a porter.
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Last edited by Matt Up North; 05-16-2009 at 07:11 PM.
Stout can be dry or sweet, is roast forward, and typically low in %ABV. Porter is higher in alcohol than a stout, and is more malt-forward with caramel or toffee sweetness and often a biscuit flavor.
Stouts shouldn't have any caramel/crystal malt in the grist whereas a porter has ~10% crystal. Also porters are typically less attenuated.
I'm curious why you think Stouts shouldn't have crystal in them?
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