London Porter 1880 - 1899

By modern UK standards, Porter was still quite a strong beer, clocking in between 5% and 6% ABV. That would no longer be true after WW I. The low gravity of versions produced in the 1920s might well have speeded the style’s demise.

As you can see in the table, the gravities of the examples from different breweries were of a very similar gravity, averaging out to exactly 1057º. Wildly differing degrees of attenuation, however, left a wide spread in the alcohol content, from under 4% ABV to just shy of 6% ABV.

The hopping rate was mostly 7 and a bit pounds per quarter (336 lbs) of malt. That’s slightly higher than for London Mild Ales, but not by a huge amount. There were a couple of outliers with higher hopping rates. In particular a couple of the earlier Truman examples.
 

London Porter 1880 - 1899
Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1887	Fullers	Porter	1053.5	1019.7	4.47	63.21%	7.57	2.03
1893	Fullers	Porter	1056.8	1027.7	3.85	51.22%	7.17	2.00
1897	Fullers	Porter	1057.1	1016.3	5.39	71.36%	6.10	1.71
1880	Truman	Runner	1056.8	1018.0	5.13	68.29%	12.8	3.84
1890	Truman	Runner	1058.2				9.42	2.63
1895	Truman	Runner	1059.0				7.52	2.06
1899	Truman	Runner	1058.2				7.25	1.99
1880	Whitbread	P	1056.5	1011.9	5.90	78.92%	7.44	2.19
1885	Whitbread	P	1056.0	1012.7	5.72	77.23%	7.32	1.80
1890	Whitbread	P	1057.1	1012.0	5.96	78.97%	9.74	2.07
1895	Whitbread	P	1058.4	1016.0	5.62	72.62%	7.20	1.76
	Average		1057.0	1016.8	5.25	70.23%	8.14	2.19
Sources:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.
Truman brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers B/THB/C/082, B/THB/C/092, B/THB/C/096 and B/THB/C/102.
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/075, LMA/4453/D/09/080, LMA/4453/D/09/084 and LMA/4453/D/09/090.