Porter Blending

[old faithful]

A topic I occasionally address came to mind again after talking with some bartowlers at Volo yesterday about blending beers on historical lines.

I opened today some Harvey's porter and made a blend of this and Petrus brune 3:1 (some might prefer 4:1, some 2:1, it is a question of taste).

The result was not just good it was great and quite similar in fact to the cask Fuller porter we were sampling yesterday.

Petrus brune is a rare surviving brew which is long aged in oak which gives the beer a particular dryness and lactic quality. While some consumers (in 1800 and now) liked this kind of beer on its own, a major use of it was to blend with newly brewed beer. Much porter (even after its replacement of three thirds) was so treated by the breweries. The dry, sourish edge cuts the sweetness and creates additional complexity.

I think the English mild ale evolved from the sweetish, younger beer end of the spectrum, i.e., mild was originally mild porter - mild meant I think not well-hopped (since a beer meant for aging or shipping would have needed extra hopping). The English sweet stout was a variation.

Guinness stout (at least originally and maybe still) was a blend of younger and oak-aged beers, thus essentially an 1800's porter except relatively strong and using also unmalted barley in the grist, which seems an Irish innovation. Until nitro dispense came in (early 1960's), the beers were blended in the pub from high and low casks: ie., from young vigorous and older, flatter, tarter brews.

The old sourish brown beers or porters, called "stale ale" (which however was more vinous than sour as such) disappeared as a solo drink except in odd corners of Belgium where it is still sold, but even there it is often used to blend once again with younger unaged beers. Goudenband is the all-aged product, so is Petrus brune, ditto Rodenbach, but the brewers also offer brands which blend new and old beers. The odd English brewer in the south still makes a blended beer of this type. Gale's Prize Old Ale comes to mind which has a dry snap not unlike Petrus I find.

Gary

[Duffey]

That's pretty cool! It's a shame that this sort of personal touch has disappeared from most of our culture. Not just pubs blending beer in their own unique proportions, but every product and shop has to be completely uniform now. Besides marketing goons, who wouldn't prefer a Guinness that is properly cared for in casks and then blended just for you to one that is chilled, bland and exactly the same every time?

[Bytowner]

I'll tell you exactly who wouldn't... any publican in Ireland. Trying to get identical pours to 500 000 people on any given night at any bar in Dublin would be a royal pain.

[Duffey]

I'll tell you exactly who wouldn't... any publican in Ireland. Trying to get identical pours to 500 000 people on any given night at any bar in Dublin would be a royal pain.

That's the whole point, they don't have to be identical. There's nothing wrong with each pint being slightly different, but nowadays everything is expected to be familiar and always the same.

[Bytowner]

Ah, no, they were expected to be similar within any given pub. Hence, "Ah sure, Powers pulls a good pint!" A pub was expected to have good enough QA so that a pint was of a certain quality, which is a nightmare if your running a place with any more than 10 patrons.

[Wheatsheaf]

Petrus brune is a rare surviving brew which is long aged in oak which gives the beer a particular dryness and lactic quality. While some consumers (in 1800 and now) liked this kind of beer on its own, a major use of it was to blend with newly brewed beer.

Not exactly. Petrus Oud Bruin is already a blended beer. Two-thirds is dark, sweet, unaged beer, and one-third is what is sold straight as Petrus Aged Pale. Before they started aging their own beer, Bavik used to buy beer from Rodenbach for blending purposes.

[old faithful]

Okay thanks I didn't realise that. The label refers to 20 months of oak aging and I assumed all of the beer in the bottle was. But still, it was perfect for this kind of blending because the palate was very dry - perhaps the sweet malty element has fermented out by now.

I know Liefmans sell locally a blended version of which Goudenband is an element.

Anyway the result was really good, I liked a 3:1 blend best, Harvey's to the old brown. Harvey's is great on its own too of course but trying this made me see the connection to a beer like Guinness and the cask Fullers Porter (I don't know if the Fullers contains an aged beer element but it tasted to me as if it might).

Gary

[A]

YAOFBP

[markaberrant]

Guinness stout (at least originally and maybe still) was a blend of younger and oak-aged beers, thus essentially an 1800's porter except relatively strong and using also unmalted barley in the grist, which seems an Irish innovation.

I'm pretty sure that Guinness did not use unmalted barley until the 1900s, I believe it was around 1930. Prior to that they used Black Patent Malt.

[old faithful]

This may be, I will have to check Roger Protz' book on the history of stout and porter.

Gary

[markaberrant]

This may be, I will have to check Roger Protz' book on the history of stout and porter.

Gary

I'm no expert either, but I too am fascinated by early porter. Steve Cavan at Paddock Wood is a pretty knowledgable guy on the subject, I believe he has written papers and given presentations at universities (he is a retired professor after all).

[midlife crisis]

I tried a variation on this suggestion of OF's, which is entertaining as always.

The Harvey's Porter already strikes me as somewhat vinous (a distinct prune flavour, actually - does anyone else get that?), so I decided not to use it. Lo and behold, I found I still had a couple of bottles of Okocim Porter on hand, a perfect approximation of the young, sweet half of the blended porter equation. I mixed it 2:1 with the Petrus Brune. It was really quite excellent. Very complex. Highly recommended. I then tried mixing in some Harvey's for a true 1750s "three threads" experience, but I found that didn't add all that much and I preferred the straight Okocim/Petrus combination.

[old faithful]

Excellent! The level of sweetness in Okocim would be perfect for that kind of blending. Probably some 1800's porters were as sweet as Okocim's.

I do get some vinous character in the Harvey's, it is a top-fermented estery note. The beer however is quite sweet too, so a blend with the Petrus would work well too I think.

As for three-thirds: there are arguments to this day what it really was. Some accounts suggest the third element (i.e., apart from young and aged brown beers) was pale ale. So any good Ontario pale or bitter beer might work, e.g., Hockley. So might Church Key West Coast Pale Ale whose heightened bitter and hop character might approximate (who knows) some late 1700's pale ales.

Gary

[Belgian]

Black Oak Pale (I keep saying it) may be excellent for this sort of thing Gary. I like it with something massive like GD Oaked Yeti. Yeti is still plenty strong when blended 2:1 or even 1:1 with a nice Pale.

[old faithful]

I agree, absolutely.

Gary