So Guinness used to make a porter...

does anyone know what it was like, what it was roughly made of, etc? I'm a big reader of early 20th century Irish literature, and gob do they guzzle down their porter!

I'm thinking that it would just be a lighter version of Guinness Extra, wouldn't it? anyone have any ideas about I might go about cloning a discontinued historical beer?

chas

 

The latest BYO has two different recipes for the original Guinness porter from the early 1800's. It was a very simple grain bill as I recall, but I don't have it in front of me right now.

 

Barclay perkins has some articles about the Guinness Porters.

Guinness XX Porter in 1861

Guinness Porter II

 

Yep - they had a couple of recipes and it was a pretty good article about the old Guinness Porter.

Chass - I also don't have the recipe in front of me, but go up to Homebrew Emporium and grab the latest BYO. From what you wrote, you would enjoy the article about how they went about determining the recipe from the old brewing logs.

 

Got it.

West India Porter

9lb Maris Otter
4.6lb Crisp Brown Malt
1lb Victory Malt
1lb Crisp Chocolate Malt

.9 oz Columbus at 70min
.35oz Columbus at 40min
1oz Willamette at 0min
1oz E. Kent Goldings at 0min

WLP 002 (Wyeast 1028)

This is very close to my porter recipe (listed under my name). Personally, I don't think I would like this beer better than the recipe I have been brewing, but I may give it a go just to see what a historical example of porter tasted like (or at least close to it).

 

Isn't 4.6 lbs A LOT for a five gallon batch?

I make a great Fuller's Porter clone with 10-12 oz each of brown and chocolate malts.

I've never seen a recipe with even 2 pounds of brown malt!

 

Originally Porters used to be made with 100% brown malt, but I'm not sure that brown malt is the same as today's brown.. It could convert itself, though it did create quite a bit of non-fermentables.

 

I use 2.5lbs in mine and have considered upping it. I love the flavor of brown malt.

 

Unless this is a porter of an OG around 1.079, I think this is for 10 gallons.

 

Since early 1800's brown malt has no diastatic abilities and is not able to convert itself. And currently it is bit darker.

See Shut up about Barclay Perkins for more on this subject.

 

That recipe is nowhere near historical. They (BYO) obviously just took contemporary grains and added them to get something they figure that might get them close. Victory, chocolate malt, and columbus - really!?

As said before, brown malt was once used for 100% of the grist (1700's), though by the early 1800's it became roasted, smokey, and rather burnt tasting. Brown malt was used for around 15-30% of the grist, followed by the addition of black malt (3-5%) not long after.

I made some homemade brown malt by kilning it over a hornbeam fire, as they did back in the day, and brewed a historical porter with it.

the Perfect Pint: Making (Diastatic) Brown Malt

Modern brown malt is tasty stuff, although I can't believe it tasted anything like the stuff they were making back in the 1800's.

 

guiness has always made porter, they called their stout "porter" originally because the word stout was not used for a beer style until about the early 20th century. and by definition a stout is a porter

straight off the wikis
"The name porter was first used in 1721 to describe a dark beer popular with street and river porters of London that had been made with roasted malts. This same beer later also became known as stout"

 

I agree, especially on the hops. Not to mention, a 40 min addition is pointless. I toyed with changing the recipe a bit but realized there's no point since it would end up so close to the one I already brew.

 

A dry stout, like draught Guinness, basically is a porter. It takes some serious beer-geekage to explain the "supposed" differences (meaning, it's above me ).

The only time I bother with stout is when I make strong versions, flavored, etc. In the lower roast/alcohol/color ranges, I consider the styles to basically be the same, and use the name porter.