Porter history - the same old bullshit

I thought that after more than a decade of Martyn Cornell and I putting the record straight on the history of Porter that the myths about its history had finally been laid to rest. How wrong I was.

The latest edition of CAMRA's Beer magazine contains an article on Porter by Roger Protz. Where he repeats all of the most egregious tales of the style's origin and decline. It's incredibly frustrating that I'm still having to refute this bullshit after demonstrating years ago just how wrong it was.

Here we go again.

"The brewers called porter entire butt, as it was served from just one cask or butt. It replaced a beer that was a blend of pale, brown and stale ales."

The early name for Porter was Starting Butt Beer, not Entire Butt. Entire Butt doesn't refer to it being served from a single cask. It means that it was brewed "Entire gyle", that is, all the worts were cobined to make a single beer. As op[posed to parti-gyling multiple beer from one brew. Entire later came to refer to Keeping Porter, beer which had been aged.

Porter didn't replace blend of pale, brown and stale ales. That was made up in the early 19th century by someone who totally misinterpreted Obadiah Poundage's letter to a magazine outlining the history of Porter. In any case Porter was a Beer, not an Ale. In the early 18th century Beer and Ale were two distinct drinks, brewed at different breweries and even coming in different-sized casks.

"But production came to an abrupt stop in World War I, when the government banned the use of dark roasted malts. It said the additional energy, in the shape of gas, coal and electricity, used to produce roasted malts should go into munitions and baking."

I've looked very carefully through the Food Controller's orders in WW I and I can find no ban on the roasting of malt. All through the war London brewed used large quantities of roasted malts, even including brown malt in some Mild Ales.

Production of Porter didn't stop in London during WW I. Neither of Stout. Even in the darkest days of 1918 and 1919, Whitbread brewed over 100,000 barrels of Porter and Stout. Production of Porter did fall dramatically in 1917 and 1918, but only because gravities had become so reduced that Stout, for a while, replaced it.

Here are the details:

Whitbread Porter and Stout production 1914 - 1929
Year	P	S	CS	LS	ES	Total Port
1914	123,085	190		198,806		382,984
1915	65,216			208,733	282	314,169
1916	80,298			244,889		369,130
1917	8,493			241,280		286,163
1918	7,136			95,882		110,695
1919	21,602	4,797		89,165		117,284
1920	24,910	47,789		137,533		234,413
1921	15,688	58,452		133,563	30,920	238,623
1922	16,562	47,530	84,703	15,340	28,582	192,717
1923	14,165	39,960	68,326	20,866	26,660	169,977
1924	15,948	37,834	74,258	23,442	26,710	178,192
1925	14,943	35,396	62,357	22,262	28,974	163,932
1926	13,511	34,567	20,721	69,724	29,990	168,513
1927	10,708	30,087		86,569	22,361	149,725
1928	10,105	30,017		85,992	16,039	142,153
1929	5,558	17,284		51,624	11,313	85,779
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/079, LMA/4453/D/01/080, LMA/4453/D/01/081, LMA/4453/D/01/082, LMA/4453/D/01/083, LMA/4453/D/01/084, LMA/4453/D/01/085, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/01/087, LMA/4453/D/01/088, LMA/4453/D/01/089, LMA/4453/D/01/090, LMA/4453/D/01/091, LMA/4453/D/01/092, LMA/4453/D/01/093 and LMA/4453/D/01/094.

WW I did have a negative impact of Porter in London. But that wasn't the result of a ban on roasted malts. More it was fault of London brewers post-war for brewing Porter as a 5d per pint beer, which meant it had a watery gravity of not much over 1030º. It seems many drinkers switched over to Stout.

It wasn't just Whitbread. Fullers were brewing 250 barrel batches of Porter in 1918 and 1919.