A stout is a porter but not as robust

“I knew I shouldn’t have encouraged you,” I tell my cousin Lovibond. She is showing off her Halloween costume and her attitude must be, “When in Rome, outdo the Romans.” Somehow she has remade a pair of lederhosen to resemble a beer cask with suspenders. At her height, the effect is, well, impressive.

“You don’t like my butt?” she asks me.

“What did you say?” I’m certain I’ve misunderstood her.

“Butt. Cask. Barrel. The thing for the storing of the beer, for the aging,” she explains in her indescribable accent. “A word in the English. I thought you would know.”

“I know the word, Lovi, just not that particular meaning for it.” I fill her in on a more popular definition, which I am certain she already knows quite well.

“Now is time, when the days they are getting shorter, that the darker beers are good for drinking. Marzen for Oktoberfest and now the butt-beer for November, what you call porter.”

Oh, porter; I've never heard that other term used that way. She goes on to tell me more old English monikers that I’ve never heard before for this dark beer. Entire. Entire-butt. Intire-butt. English is a funny language, and porter is native to England. Lovibond also informs me that the state of Maine last year banned a British seasonal porter with a picture of Santa Claus (from the back) sitting on a keg with a beer in his hand, called “Santa’s Butt Winter Porter.” (It was allowed back on the far northeastern shelves this past January).

The history of porter is as fanciful as its names. One tale, long-repeated as true, claimed that porter is the only successful beer style to have been invented by an individual. That brewer, the story goes, wished to replace the pub-blended beers popular in the 18th Century with a single brew with similar characteristics. Another legend attests that mistakenly charred hops once resulted in a black beer shunned by pubs, so it was given out free to the porters working the streets and docks. This bounty, it is said, in turn created an avid demand for the brew from the laborers.

“The history that is true is maybe not so colorful,” Lovi says. Typical brown beers in London in the 1700’s, thick and sweet, were being upstaged by the growing popularity of countryside beers made with strong pale malts. As a result, the urban brown ales were made stronger and hoppier, requiring longer aging to obtain a smooth, appealing character. This new generation of strong, dark brown beer became so popular with the haulers of goods along the streets and rivers that it took their name – porter.

Porter breweries have traditionally been innovative. They were the first to employ thermometers and hydrometers in beermaking. Over the years, the balance of malts and the aging processes typifying porters have often changed. The practice of blending mashes and even finished beers has at times returned to porter production. This flexibility in the creation of porter is perhaps one of the elements making it currently so popular as a craft beer.

During this developmental history, porter-making began to appear in other places. The English porters made for export to the Baltic region were dark and potent, and led to their brewing in the north of Europe. In Ireland, where they were also brewed stronger and heftier, the strongest were called stout porters. These, produced primarily by Guinness, eventually became the style of beer simply called stouts.

Lovibond and I have danced our way through the Halloween parties. The new wave of strong, microbrewed porters in the USA and our over-the-top, sometimes outrageous celebration of Halloween are both sourced in traditions we’ve brought from the Old Country and pushed to new limits.

We’re ready to Taste a couple of porters made in the American west. They are called “robust” by their brewers – not a style, but an indication of the character of the beer. This evening we’ve found a Scottsdale draught, Papago El Robusto Porter from Sonoran Brewing Company, and a bottle of Saint Bridget’s Robust Porter from the Great Divide Brewing Company in Colorado.

The deep, rich dark colors characteristic of porter are the first thing we notice. Papago is very dark, totally opaque, with a bubbly head that is nearly cocoa-brown. In contrast, Saint Bridget’s lets a hint of light through, showing ruby glints in the deep red brown brew with a light tan head.

These are lovely beers just to hold, look at and smell. Papago has a sweet aroma with just an edge of burnt sugar. Similarly, Saint Bridget’s holds the slightest hint of smoke in a bouquet that reminds me of roasting flowers. The thick, bubbly heads don’t last long but leave a thin frosting of lace at the surface and on the edges of our glasses. The tale on the Great Divide label tells of Saint Bridget’s ability to turn her bathwater into beer for the benefit of beer-drinking clerics. Papago, I learn, is a Baltic-style porter only available in Arizona, and even here not widely (yet). Its name combines the name of a Southwest Indian group with the Spanish language common in Arizona; on a Baltic variety of an English beer, it seems a celebration of American diversity.

When we taste them, it seems that these beers hold the opposite ends of the “robust” porter spectrum. Papago, with its opaque, rich body and a bitterness that is almost chewy, is close to being a stout. It leaves a floral note sliding down the sides of my tongue. St. Brigid’s is softer, more acidic, leaning toward the strong brown ale side of the scale. The Saint’s texture has a touch of oat character, creamy and smooth. Both are strong and satisfying, without the slightly watery nature of weaker porters.

One learns to appreciate the porter aftertaste, my cousin tells me. That slightly metallic sensation that is almost a taste comes from the carbonization of heavily roasted malt sugars. There’s a dryness where I might have anticipated a sweetness, and the hops' bitterness lingers pleasantly.

The mellow, lazy sensation that follows our enjoyment of these porters seems just right for nights that come early and quickly grow chill. It’s a sit-round-the-fire, social conversation kind of feeling. I picture porters in stemmed glasses surrounded by colorful leaves and a brimming cornucopia – a style of beer to take us toward Thanksgiving.