Let's Brew - 1897 Fremlin Porter

It’s interesting to see that Fremlin were still brewing a Porter at this date. Probably because of the brewery’s proximity to London. In most of the country, brewers had dropped Porter, though continued to brew Stout.

The grist itself shows a London influence, with more than 11% brown malt. However, there’s no black malt, its place being taken by chocolate malt. Which is a substitution Whitbread also made, except a couple of decades later.

The presence of oat malt betrays that some must have been marketed as Oat Stout. Even though this beer was brewed single-gyle and not parti-gyled with a Stout.

There’s an awful lot of sugar in the recipe. Over 25% of the total. In the brewing record it’s simply described as “cane”. I’ve assumed unrefined brown sugar. In addition, there’s quite a bit of caramel. Which leaves the finished beer pretty dark.

Three types of English hops, two from the 1896 harvest and one from 1897. Pretty fresh, then, considering this was brewed in October. 

1897 Fremlin Porter
pale malt	4.25 lb	41.98%
brown malt	1.25 lb	12.35%
chocolate malt	0.875 lb	8.64%
oat malt	0.75 lb	7.41%
brown sugar	2.75 lb	27.16%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.25 lb	2.47%
Fuggles 145 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.00 oz
OG	1052
FG	1015
ABV	4.89
Apparent attenuation	71.15%
IBU	41
SRM	41
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	180º F
Boil time	145 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale