Differentiate Porter and Stout

[seymour]

Here in the States, there is a lot of debate about the differences between Porter and Stout. I want to hear what English brewers have to say about these English beer styles.

I've heard lots of different origin stories about Porter, which is interesting, too, but I'm not asking a historical question now.

What, in your opinion, are the essential aspects of Porter, or Stout, and how do they differ? Does it have to do with strength? darkness? amount of roasted barley? the presence of crystal/caramel malts? is it purely semantics, up to the brewer to define? would you ferment with different yeasts? etc, etc, etc.

Thanks!

[zgoda]

Martyn Cornell (Zytophile) has great article on this on his blog. Bottom line is: there are no differences, except for history, when stouts was just stronger porters.

Funny that, I have German brewing textbook which states the only difference is occasional use of unmalted roasted barley in stouts, not present in British style porters. Apart from this they are indistinguishable (according to Michael Esslinger, who authored this book).

[orlando]

If you were going to cite one distinction it would be brown malt in porter and roast barley in stout. You can't really separate the history from these styles and it is the development of stout FROM porter that is the key. Malted barley was taxed so stout came about, in part at least, to avoid it as roasted barley wasn't. The other aspect is that porter was often a "blended" beer whereas I believe stout was always a "stand alone" style.

Considering there is probably a book length discussion of the differences I suspect there will be plenty coming along with more distinctions. A good book for highlighting some of these is Randy Mosher's Designing Great Beers.

[boingy]

The full name of stout is "stout porter", so you could consider a stout to be a more extreme version of a porter.
Alternatively, you could think of a porter as being halfway between a stout and a bitter. As with other beer styles, the edges are somewhat blurred.

The best way to tell the difference is to hand a pint of it to my other half. If she likes it, it's not stout....

[Fuggledog]

one of the best references i know of is Ron Pattinson's extensive research on the subject. he has a book available for purchase online that will take you from descriptions of butt beers (pre-porter) through to london brewlogs in 1805->1950's or so. This book, or the posted blog entries on Ron's site give a good overview of what stout and porter meant at different times (i.e. there were 'stouts' before porters but the term just meant 'strong', so you could have pale stout - i.e. like a strong pale ale). later when porter became extremely popular, 'stout porter' meant strong porter, and eventually the term 'stout' was associated with porter and not other beer styles. according to Ron's research, as beer gravities dropped, so the lower strength styles started to fade away. porter dissapeared and 'stout' (or 'stout porter') took over the niche of ordinary porter. of course this is all my regurgitation of someone elses research (Ron's mainly), so i haven't researched this myself. however the point is it is differcult to answer your question without reference to the history, and most importantly, evolution of these beer styles. currently there seems to be a revival of interest in porter - but how to interpret this in relation to stout? ironically a historical porter, 'brewed to style' would be stronger than most modern stouts. As a once extinct style there seem to be two options - to brew a historically accurate porter or to make something up that fits in with an idea the brewer wants their beer to be. i think the latter is often the case, and as such modern porters can be any variation of the broad 'stout' style.

[orlando]

ironically a historical porter, 'brewed to style' would be stronger than most modern stouts. As a once extinct style there seem to be two options - to brew a historically accurate porter or to make something up that fits in with an idea the brewer wants their beer to be. i think the latter is often the case, and as such modern porters can be any variation of the broad 'stout' style.

And a Brown Porter brewed to BJCP "style" using your malt kilned as it would have been back in the 19c, would be out of the colour range and additionally out of the IBU range and as you say, stronger. Er, so nothing like it really.

[Jocky]

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[Jocky]

Personally, as a British home brewer, I generally expect porter to be much the same as a stout, but with a lower final gravity.

Colour, hops, bitterness I all expect to be roughly the same between the two, but stout will have a 'heavier' mouth feel or sweeter taste.

[patto1ro]

"Malted barley was taxed so stout came about, in part at least, to avoid it as roasted barley wasn't. The other aspect is that porter was often a "blended" beer whereas I believe stout was always a "stand alone" style."

Roasted barley was illegal before 1880 for the very reason that it avoided the malt tax. A brewer using it would have been heavily fined. You also seem to be assuming that Stout contained roast barley and Porter didn't. Which isn't true. Brewers usually chose either roast barley or black malt and used it in both their Porter and Stout.

You've got it the wrong way around with blending. Guinness Extra Stout continued to be a blend of fresh beer and old beer well into the 20th century. Production of aged Porter ended in the 1870's in London so after that date there was no old Porter to bleend with.

[john_drummer]

so if I have a recipe for "stout" that doesn't include roasted barley, is it a stout or a porter?

loosely based on Saltaire Brewery's Triple Chocoholic, but without quite so much chocolate:

brew length 19.0 litres colour 61.1EBC, bitterness 34.3IBU.
BIAB, 68% efficiency
OG 1049, projected FG 1012

Pale Malt 3600g
Chocolate Malt 500g
Oat malt 200g
Torrified Wheat 200g

cocoa powder 100g (incidentally, should this be in the mash or the boil?)

Fuggles 40g 90mins
Fuggles 10g 10 mins
Fuggles 10g Flame out
Irish Moss 3g 10 mins

[CestrIan]

You've opened a can of worms here (if you're intersted i've got a great recipe for that too) because porters were made and drunk over many generations and recipes changed with each generation and there were also regional variations with each generation. However for me stout contains roast and flaked barley and porter contains smoked malt.

Read Amber, Gold and Black: The History of Britain's Great Beers

[super_simian]

So if I have a recipe for "stout" that doesn't include roasted barley, is it a stout or a porter?

Yes, it is.

[john_drummer]

...and porter contains smoked malt.

bugger, that means the 38 bottles of porter I've got conditioning aren't porter either

So if I have a recipe for "stout" that doesn't include roasted barley, is it a stout or a porter?

Yes, it is.

so it's both?

[seymour]

Bump.

Some great discussion here, I'm wondering if anyone else has more to add.

[Blackaddler]

However for me stout contains roast and flaked barley and porter contains smoked malt.

Fair enough, but roast and flaked barley in stout is a more recent recipe style [Guinness]. At one time all malt used to be "smoked" to some extent, so isn't Porter specific.

AFAIK, Stout is an abbreviation of Stout [strong] Porter.

Like lots of other thing to do with beer and brewing, the boundaries have become blurred, along with history itself.