Best yeast for a Porter?

[spearmint-wino]

This weekend I quite fancy trying my hand at a version of "our Graham's" Modern Porter recipe from Home Brewing, beefed up a bit from 1046 to 1052.
I have S-04, Nottingham and a 3-months out of date but stored in the fridge Windsor available in the yeast stocks. Which would work best for a porter? TIA

[David Edge]

I was judging the CAMRA West Midlands porter competition yesterday. Commercial brewers have some pretty broad ideas of what makes a porter - all they had in common was the colour!

So it depends on what you want from a porter. The National Guild of Wine and Beer Judges suggest that a porter should be full and with a little residual sweetness to balance the hop and roast grain. If that's your idea too, Windsor will give you the least attenuation, a little residual sweetness and perhaps some maltiness.

When you rehydrate the Windsor pay attention to the manufacturer's instructions to maximise viability.

(Remember there is a 'Yeast' forum where you are more likely to pick up an expert answer).

[spearmint-wino]

Thanks David, Windsor it is then. I was originally going to post this in the Yeast section but its been a little quiet around the forum this afternoon so I thought I'd throw in a curve-ball to liven things up...

[anomalous_result]

Commercial brewers have some pretty broad ideas of what makes a porter - all they had in common was the colour!

...The National Guild of Wine and Beer Judges suggest that a porter should be full and with a little residual sweetness to balance the hop and roast grain...

[offtopic]This kind of thing interests me. At agricultural shows animals are judged on their conformation to a set standard, so being 'as close to breed' as possible is how they win a rosette. Is there any analagous 'standard' in beer style terms? Is there a (inter)nationally recognised standard for a porter? If there is, how does it differ to a stout? Or is that asking the question that's been asked a million times before?

The Guild's 'suggestion' appears equally broad to my untrained palette/eye and maybe I'm becoming overly obsessed with defining a beer when I should be more concerned with its characteristics.

Hope you don't mind a long irrelevant post, I try not to make a habit of it.[/offtopic]

[spearmint-wino]

BJCP guidelines for Porter are here

Whether these translate as what you'd expect from a traditional old-school London Porter or the like I'm not really qualified to say...

[oblivious]

i am doing one with S-04, but i think WLP002 would be very intresting

[David Edge]

Is there any analagous 'standard' in beer style terms? Is there a (inter)nationally recognised standard for a porter?

Yes; there has to be. It helps consumers know what they are being offered and judges to judge what is best in a competition. That's not to say they closest to the definition wins, rather a balanced beer within the standard with a bit of a wow! factor will come out on top.

Several standards exists though. The Guild standards are the ones generally applied in UK home brewing competitions since the 1970s. Their activities aren't well documented on the web, so many people jump straight to the US BJCP style guidelines. It's important to realise that those guidelines are primarily for US homebrew competitions and may not reflect the beers as brewed by commercial and amateur brewers in the country of origin.

Commercial beers are judged against CAMRA or SIBA guidelines - I don't have them to hand but the style guidelines for both were written by Keith Thomas of Brewlab, as were the ones the Sutton and Derby CBA festivals. The last plus links to BJCP and NGWBJ can be found under 'Beer Style Guidelines' on the CBA 'Recipes and Design page http://craftbrewing.org.uk/design/index.html

[David Edge]

The Guild's 'suggestion' appears equally broad to my untrained palette/eye and maybe I'm becoming overly obsessed with defining a beer when I should be more concerned with its characteristics.

Go along to a beer competition and volunteer yourself as a steward! All will be revealed. A couple of hours free tuition from someone who will generally be a champion brewer with a decade or two of experience.

[Aleman]

The problem with having a 'standard' is that you end up with rigid style guidelines along the lines of the BJPC (Or whatever it is )

The problem with 'commercial' beers is that the style is merely a marketing label.

Then you have the problem of when is/was it a style? Porter became a style in the late 1700's (??) so how can we compare it to a beer today? That is what makes the Durden Park beers so good, in that the recipes are derived from actual brewery records of that particular beer at that particular time, (In fact down to the particular gyle of that beer). Having had access to a Fullers ledger of 1889, I can appreciate the work that has gone into the translation of these ledgers in order to make them usable today. I suspect it would be a very small brewery (Iceni??) That might attempt to brew these, and certainly only for the bottle market.

Personally I like the broad standards, and using those and what I've read about the style, formulating my own recipe for a beer 'in the style of' is much more fun

[anomalous_result]

Several standards exists though

I thought as much.

Go along to a beer competition and volunteer yourself as a steward!

That definately sounds like a good idea. Really want to be able to appreciate the fine differences, the 'extra' that's put into a quality pint. At the moment I just like it lol.

The problem with 'commercial' beers is that the style is merely a marketing label.

Which then becomes a style guide for a generation, everyone I know thinks a stout will just taste like Guinness.

Personally I like the broad standards, and using those and what I've read about the style, formulating my own recipe for a beer 'in the style of' is much more fun

Commercially it perhaps makes it harder, but I think it certainly allows the creative homebrewer more opportunities to have a go at something different, even if it does make a judge's job harder! Now what would a peanut butter and jam wheat beer come under?

[David Edge]

Personally I like the broad standards, and using those and what I've read about the style, formulating my own recipe for a beer 'in the style of' is much more fun

Quite so. BJCP styles are the most tightly defined, UK 'Guild' less so and at the festivals anything goes. However, if you want judging there needs to be some reference. There's little point in entering a porter that's blonde apart from some minor amusement (as happened this year).

At Derby we have put the beer into broad classes - basically bitter in gravity bands; and dark and pale 'specials' into separate classes. The great majority of the entries are bitters. Thus the judge who draws 'dark special' may end up with everything from dark mild through brown ales, stouts, porters, strong milds, old ales and barley wine with just one or two examples of each. (It will be split by gravity in 2008 above and below about 1050 to make it a little easier).

The more experienced or cosmopolitan judges are selected for these hybrid classes - last year we had Geoff Cooper, one of the Guild's top blokes, Ant Hayes of the BJCP and Sean Franklin of Roosters (who judges at GABF) doing these more difficult ones.

We tell the judge what the brewer claims it is and the gravity. Hence he will judge:
IPA 1035 against Greene Kinge Vicar's Piss
IPA 1055 against the UK home brewing standard, and
IPA 1065 as a historical beer.

Festivals are good fun whether you enter or not - it's basically a chance to taste and discuss beers with kindred spirits.

[David Edge]

what would a peanut butter and jam wheat beer come under

Pale special. Dave Ranger's probably already done it. See page 1 of http://craftbrewing.org.uk/bcpdf/BC5-3_sep2005.pdf

[anomalous_result]

Festivals are good fun whether you enter or not

If you don't enter and don't judge do you get to taste?

[David Edge]

If you don't enter and don't judge do you get to taste?

If you don't judge or steward you won't get to taste at a traditional show. Some of these things are followed by bunfights in the evening (maybe even a tea dance) at which bottles may come out.

You do get to taste - drink indeed - the beer at Sutton, Derby, one or two small London shows if they're still going and at some competitions organised by clubs - certainly Northern Craft Brewers, Scottish Craft Brewers - and of course by definition at beer circle meetings.