Stout When It's Great: Wellington Imperial Russian Stout

[G.M. Gillman]

I suppose drinking porter/stout since the early 1970's does incline one to a certain experience, although taste as always is subjective.

Recently in New York, trawling through a number of porters and stouts, I had difficulty in finding the "right" one (i.e., for me).

Avery Porter, 2012 Wells Young Courage IRS (in bottle), Left Hand milk stout, Farmer John Oatmeal Stout from Heartland, Old Rasputin, and an Irish-style stout from Greenpoint, all just didn't do it for me. All worthy and no doubt pleasing to many, but not for me.

A certain taste just does it though, and I am trying it now: Wellington County Imperial Russian Stout. The current one just hits it perfectly: decidedly bitter (more than in past years) in a non-aromatic way as apt, with rich chocolatey goodness, and sans the lactic/milky notes I used to get. The real deal as I apprehend it from historical readings. I would doubt (but maybe I'm wrong) there are any raw grains in this: it tastes 100% malt. It reminds me of other great stouts such as the aforesaid Wells Young Courage IRS but 2011 bottling, Samuel Smith Imperial Stout, Sinebrychoff Stout, Carnegie Porter, The Kernel Double Stout (from an 1890's recipe). Also, Fuller's Double Stout, another historical recreation we got in Ontario some time back.

On cask it would be even fuller and richer in taste but the tinned one is extremely good too. I am sure there are others as good (not mentioned above) but as an example of a great stout this can hardly be bested, IMO.

Gary

[JeffPorter]

I recently picked up a couple of cans, and I gotta say, I don't remember it being this rich as it is right now. I don't have nearly the same experience that you or most folks on this board has, but there's just a delicious simplicity to the beer that makes it so good.

[G.M. Gillman]

Well put Jeff and I only refer to my larger experience as a kind of validation but one doesn't need that, it is enough to recognize a rich and pleasing taste of course. Certainly it's a special beer and while it has been around for many years, I cannot recall it being nearly as good in the past.

Also, correction to name of The Kernel's product reference: it is actually Export Stout, 7.2% ABV.

Gary

[cratez]

Putting aside that this is a not-so-thinly-veiled break-off from the other thread and, as a beer review of sorts, likely belongs in the Beer Reviews section, I don’t agree with the notion that porter and stout are one in the same, as the original post seems to imply.

Historically that may have been the case with “strength” being a key dividing point, and I know some still believe that one brewer’s porter is another one’s stout, but today's Robust Porters exhibit enough differences from several types of stout to warrant a distinction e.g. they're usually hoppier than most low to mid-strength stouts, especially in aroma (from dry hopping) but also in taste, lack a strong roasted barley character, are typically medium to medium-full bodied with crisp/spicy carbonation as opposed to having a full and creamy mouthfeel, and carry a lower ABV than your average Foreign or Imperial Stout but are stronger than a Dry Stout (i.e. in the 5-6.5% range). As it happens, the BJCP agrees.

Gary must have extremely demanding and/or niche tastes for porter and stout since five of the six beers listed are rated in the 90s and three are considered world class. But I can relate to the fact that we all have subjective factors by which we measure “good” and “bad” examples of each style. In my case, I can’t stand overly malty porters. Shipyard Imperial Porter from last year’s brewery feature is a recent example that comes to mind. It had a sweet, leathery, and liquorish-like maltiness with almost no hops and struck me as very one-note. Bleh.

A final point regarding taste: naturally our impressions of beers are coloured by our personal backgrounds and preferences, and if you’re partial to the English styles that Wellington, Neustadt, and other local crafters excel in, there’s a lot to like in this province. For my part I tend to prefer the bolder, brasher flavours of American styles. Both approaches to brewing and the consumer preferences for them are valid, and within Ontario it’s encouraging to see our brewers increasingly drawing inspiration from a range of global influences (Belgium, the U.S., New Zealand, etc).

[markaberrant]

today's Robust Porters exhibit enough differences from several types of stout to warrant a distinction e.g. they're usually hoppier than most low to mid-strength stouts, especially in aroma (from dry hopping) but also in taste, lack a strong roasted barley character, are typically medium to medium-full bodied with crisp/spicy carbonation as opposed to having a full and creamy mouthfeel, and carry a lower ABV than your average Foreign or Imperial Stout but are stronger than a Dry Stout (i.e. in the 5-6.5% range). As it happens, the BJCP agrees.

Sorry, but I completely disagree, there is no difference. Read the BJCP guidelines for the many styles of stout and porter, there is so much overlap, and individual styles allow for a very wide range of variance. As someone that has spent a great deal of time focused on the BJCP style guidelines as a student, a judge and a teacher, I feel they screwed these categories up royally.

I have had plenty of dry porters and stouts, sweet porters and stouts, bitter porters and stouts, strong porters and stouts, roasty porters and stouts, malty porters and stouts, hoppy porters and stouts, thin porters and stouts, thick porters and stouts, low carbonation porters and stouts, and high carbonation porters and stouts.

I have yet to see anyone put forth a convincing argument that articulates the difference between porter and stout.

[G.M. Gillman]

I wanted to consider the Wellington IRS in relation to a number of other stouts I've had recently and situate the beer also within decades of tasting the style, which seemed more apt for Random Talk. As always I deign to the site mods and if they move the thread I have no issue at all.

There is no essential distinction historically between porter and stout, IMO. This has been convincingly shown - once again in my estimation - by beer historians Martyn Cornell and Ron Pattinson and my own reading in numerous sources from 1700's-1800's confirms it. I can't find any difference except initially for strength - stout was stronger. Brewers themselves sometimes alternated between the two terms and in any case weren't consistent. Both were all-malt until about 1845 (first use of sugar) and ca 1885 (first use of raw grains), when the law was changed to permit these adjuncts. Today one can classify them in many ways, e.g. some people consider Irish dry stout to be distinguished by use of flaked and especially roast barley but Guinness in the 1800's was all-malt. Of course Imperial stout is much stronger than a 5% stout so it makes sense to put them in different categories for judging. Milk stout uses lactose sugar so a production distinction there. But broadly to me it's all the same style, some stronger, some sweeter, some flavoured, some not.

Everyone is entitled to view it as they wish including the various beer tasting groups but I view it as one style even today mainly because as Mark said the tastes seem all over the map, I just can't see a difference in essence and it seems down to the term the brewers choose for their labels.

I just give my opinion what I like and it's true I do find the English classic taste the best. Neustadt's Big Dog porter is very good too, I do like that one and numerous other Ontario porter/stouts but right now that Wellington seemed to have a special quality.

I certainly like New World hops in some porter and stout - it's just not the very top of the line for me. Ditto for the dry style, e.g. I think Guinness Foreign Extra Stout is very good, a very creditable version of Guinness. It isn't really malty-sweet but has a special quality that stands out in the Guinness line. Sinha is another example, it's a very good strong "Irish" style I'd say since it does use a measure of roasted barley (unmalted), but still I think it's not at the level of the greatest stouts. It's not just an alcohol thing, e.g. Carnegie Porter is 5% ABV but is a better taste - IMO but some won't agree and that's fine.

People should say what they like and I'm always interested in their views as I hope they in mine.

Gary

[Derek]

I have yet to see anyone put forth a convincing argument that articulates the difference between porter and stout.

Contemporary stouts use roasted barley; Porters do not.

Anything that does not comply is mislabeled (either by the brewer or the BJCP with their 'Robust' category).

[G.M. Gillman]

The more I think about, it makes sense that early style guidelines took a kind of ur-distinction between Guinness, the most famous stout in the world, and Anchor Porter, the main and I think only commercial porter available on the West Coast where the burgeoning craft brewing scene began. Guinness (and also Murphy and Beamish which Jackson wrote about too) used roasted barley. Anchor Porter used all-malt, an article of faith with Fritz Maytag.

I think this made many think the two styles, stout and porter, were distinguished in this way with porter the sweeter. But e.g. did the surviving porters made in the world at that time, e.g., Molson's, Labatt's, Yuengling's, Stegmaier's, all eschew roasted barley or were they all sweeter than Guinness? I would doubt this. Taddy Porter, re-introduced in the 80's by Sam Smith in England, is notably dry in fact...

Some brewers have told me that it can be difficult to distinguish between the effects of roasted (black patent) malt vs. roasted barley in beer. I suspect the dry vs. sweet thing may be down to, or also to, use of unroasted raw grains, often in flaked form, in modern stout recipes. But of course Imperial Russian Stout, say, certainly Wells Young Courage's, whose roots go back to the 1700's, is all-malt, so...

Anyway, lots of ways to look at the great subject of beer. I don't knock how anyone wants to classify since to a degree it is arbitrary (lumper vs. splitter approaches) but the first 200 years of porter history - the time of its heyday - does count for a certain amount IMO.

[markaberrant]

it can be difficult to distinguish between the effects of roasted (black patent) malt vs. roasted barley in beer.

Agreed.

[G.M. Gillman]

Sometimes I feel I can tell but I'm sure I'm wrong a lot of the time. The roasty dryness that seems to be a characteristic of a lot of stout may be due in part or 100% to raw or flaked barley adjunct as well - adjunct not colouring grains I mean. There are probably so many other variables such as freshness and other quality of the grains, effect of mashing regime, effect of hops, that it would be hard to tell the results blind with any certainty.

It's interesting about robust porter, a term that I've never seen in any popular or technical discussion of porter and stout until the last 12 years or so. Horst Dornbusch has written a bit about it and I think he means that black patent malt is a hallmark of the style. Black patent was invented about 1820. Before that, the colouring malts were brown (or "blown") and amber malts. Brown or amber continued to be used with black malt in Ireland and England for a long time after black malt made it strictly (from a colour standpoint) unnecessary. But a lot of English porter in the 1900's used roasted barley in lieu of black malt. So I believe did Guinness Porter (properly so-called) until its withdrawal from the market in Ireland in about 1974.

In terms of U.S stouts I like: generally Tenfidy is very nice, one of the best I think. I didn't enjoy the Shipyard Imperial Porter that was mentioned, didn't mind the richness but I felt it needed more hops to balance it. Anchor Porter is excellent for its gravity but I find you need to have the draft, the bottled is more muted. Sierra Nevada's porter and stout - there you see a decision of the brewer to use two distinctions, perhaps following the modern roast barley vs. roast malt distinction - are very good. I like Perkumo's Hammer, which is flavored I think. Never really liked most of the bourbon barrel-aged ones, but Goose Island's is sort of a sentimental favourite.

Gary

[cratez]

Those are my thoughts based on my experience with the respective styles, and the guidelines support my impressions including the distinctions between the two broad styles. So again, the absence of roasted barley in most porters, multiple mentions of the creamy mouthfeel, aroma, and sweetness of various stouts and no such mention in the porter guidelines, dry hopping and its affect on the aroma of (typically U.S.-style) Robust Porters, and small but important differences in ABV. Others are free to disagree, and I respect the "one in the same" view even if I don't subscribe to it myself.

[matt7215]

http://www.ratebeer.com/forums/the-conv ... 244985.htm

[G.M. Gillman]

Some interesting observations and questions in that discussion.

A lot of answers may be found here:

http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2009/03 ... and-stout/

Gary

[Belgian]

Anchor Porter is excellent for its gravity but I find you need to have the draft, the bottled is more muted.

Must be incredible on tap because I find bottled Anchor Porter delicious and really different.

[G.M. Gillman]

Everything is just bigger, the malt and especially the hops. The bottled is always reliable. Any of the Anchor beers would be a great find on draft here but I've never seen it.

Gary