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.
5 comments:
He also claims that the name comes from the beer's popularity with market, rather than street and river, porters, and that the alleged World War I malting restrictions weren't imposed on the "rebellious Irish" (bit of racial stereotyping there), thus giving Irish porter brewers a trade advantage.
It amazes me how much food and drink history is written while being based only on secondary sources. Writers seem to have no concept that those sources might be off the mark, and even worse, all basing their accounts on the same single mistaken secondary source.
Matt, if I recall correctly during World War I British brewers were limited to an average gravity of 1.030 while Irish brewers were permitted 1.045, taking into account their greater propensity to brew stout.
The publicity for Roger's new "World Beer Book" is repeating the nonsense that Bass Pale Ale was "the world's first pale ale", again despite the fact that it has been pointed out to him this is wildly inaccurate. Really, I weep.
On the "Irish question", yes, it wasn't because the Irish were rebellious, it was because the Irish brewers persuaded the government that they simpply could not brew their stouts at the gravities the government was trying to impose.
Having been following the teachings of Messrs Pattinson and Cornell for nearly a decade now I am quietly confident of know the truth of our favourite drink. And Roger Protz really should know better by now!
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