nerdlogic

Recipes 

__________________
On Deck: None
Primary 1: IPA
Primary 2: Pale Ale
Kegged: Oatmeal Stout
Drinking: Rum

nerdlogic

Recipes 

I posted this under extract, but im moving it here...

Hey, I've brewed a lot of pilsners... all lagers really... and I was interested in doing my first stout (although I'm not sure what the difference is between porter & stout). Basicaly I wanna do a dark/thick/oatmeal type beer thats not as strong as a guinness but not as weak as a Black&Tan.

Anyone know what I'm really looking for? I'm sort of confused, but I can say that I want to use mostly extracts (I've done carapils grinding before) and I don't know if I'm making a lager or ale this time, since I'm not really sure what exactly a stout/porter is or the difference is.

Best case response for me would be a link to a recipe you've tried and a description of what stout/porter are... and whether its an ale or lager... I'm so confused

__________________
On Deck: None
Primary 1: IPA
Primary 2: Pale Ale
Kegged: Oatmeal Stout
Drinking: Rum

Revvy

Recipes 

This is the best source for understanding different beer styles. BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines - Index

Porters and stouts have a fascinating history, just like IPA's do...if you do some googling you will find the history of them...there's also a few threads on here discussing the history of them.

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nerdlogic

Recipes 

....but is it an ale or a lager? I see on that page that sometimes they use lager yeast and i suppose that means more often not? Whats the difference between stout & porter?

__________________
On Deck: None
Primary 1: IPA
Primary 2: Pale Ale
Kegged: Oatmeal Stout
Drinking: Rum

Revvy

Recipes 

I've never seen Stouts or Porters using lager yeasts....If they do it's some quasi thing...traditionally they were ales...

And as to the difference I suggest you look at the history...it will explain since they are related....


Porter (beer) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stout

It's starts off.....

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carnevoodoo

Recipes 

BJCP guidelines only really discern styles.

Historically, there's no real difference. It is sort of a cloudy mess of history, but there's a lot out there. The modern differentiation as far as I've ever found is as follows:

"Stouts should get their bitterness and darkness through the use of roasted malt and barley, whereas Porters should be more obviously hopped with their darkness coming from black malt."

That's about all the difference that can be noted, but I've seen recipes for porters with roasted barley in them, so we're sort of back to square one on that.

carnevoodoo

Recipes 

+1 to the above poster. They're both ales. Porters and stouts are not lagered.

llazy_llama

Recipes 

The style Stout actually evolved from the Porter over the years. When Guinness was first introduced, it was classified as a Porter, because Stout was simply an adjective used to describe a beer, and not a style.

I'm looking for a podcast I heard recently that was very informative on the subject, but I can't seem to find it. It did have a lot of great history about Porters and Stouts and how the two styles evolved over the years. I'll post a link if I can find it.

Edited: Oh, and yes, they're both ales rather than lagers.

Edited again: Maybe it wasn't a podcast, but a chapter in Designing Great Beers I'm thinking of. I don't have my copy handy or I'd go check for certain. Sorry.

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GAbrewer

Recipes 

Porter and stouts are both ales. As I understand it, the main difference between lagers and ales are the fermentation temperatures and the type of yeast used. Ales use top-fermenting yeast strains, and are femented at temps close to room temperature. Lagers are fermented using bottom-fermenting yeast strains and are fermented at much colder temperatures and often for longer periods. Most homebrewers start with ales, because its much easier to brew them without needing some type of refrigeration.

flyangler18

Recipes 

Recalling from memory in reading Daniels, stouts are a derivative of porter - which is considered to be the first truly industrial ale manufactured a truly massive scale, designed with all sorts of foul tasting adjuncts in the UK during the Industrial Revolution. 'Stout' was a descriptor assigned to porters of strength.

In terms of grain bill, roasted barley is a key component of stout where black malt (black patent) or brown malt is a characteristic ingredient of porter. The lines blur among homebrewers however. There's an excellent chapter on the history of porter in Designing Great Beers. I'll have to pull it out and excerpt some passages here.