Education

Maybe it's my fault. I should have insisted on a full explanation on the label.

1914 Whitbread Porter and SSS Stout. That's where my recreation brewing career started. I pitched an idea to an importer and found a brewer. What was that idea? You need to understand my motivation  to get beers brewed first. 

Frustration. Frustration with stupid arguments with brainwashed geeks about beer history. In particular, the difference between Porter and Stout. How best to demonstrate that historically they were just different strength versions of the same thing?

Easy. Get someone to brew a Porter and Stout recipe from the same year from the same brewery. That's the core of my recreation idea. Release a brace of brews whose relationship taught something about beer history. Either two related styles from the same year or the same style from different years.

I thought it was a pretty groovy concept. At least two others agreed.

I hoped the beers would be drunk side by side and my point would be clear. Fat chance. Not necessarily the fault of the punter. No guarantee they could find or afford both.

Judging by these comments on ratings sites, my efforts were in vain.

"Billed as a stout on the chalkboard at the Shelton Bros event - you could/should bump this up into the 'imperial porter' category."

"Lists as an imperial stout but does feel more porter like."

"Really a flavorful malty porter."

"The mouthfeel leaned more towards a Porter than a stout"

"The label describes this beer as a porter, but it definitely isn't. It is somewhere between a light, chocolatey quad, a Belgian stout, a Belgian Dark Strong Ale."

"Think brown porter."

"The result is an old fashioned porter/stout which has a lot in common with current (imperial) brown ale style, so I think they definitely got the point with this recipe."

"it feels lighter in body than a porter. More like a brown ale"

"I’m getting modern porter here."

"The bottle we had said porter, but we believe it to be the same. Nice rich RIS"

"Great stout that may actually may be an exceptional Porter."

"turns out i put the 1914 porter here by mistake.. opps"

"drinkable in quantity if i were into porters masked as thin imperial stouts"

"mouthfeel i find a little thin for my liking more like a porter"

Incidentally, if you want to learn more about Porter and Stout, the differences between them and even the recipes for the two 1914 beers, you should buy my book "Porter!" . There's a 20% discount on the hardback until the end of October.

Not true to style

I'd been waiting for this. It's a major reason why I monitor the Ratebeer reviews of my two Whitbread recreations. And someone finally said it ". . not quite to style . .". Whitbread SSS was the beer in question.

Not to style. What on earth does that mean in the context of a recreation of an historic brew? That Whitbread weren't brewing stylistically correct Stouts in 1914? Or that in 1914 they weren't brewing a Stout according to 2009 style guidelines? Either way, it's a ludicrous way to judge a beer.

In 1914, Whitbread were by definition brewing to style. Being one of the large London Porter brewers, their beers had helped to define the style in the first place. SSS is a typical Triple Stout from before WW I. I should know. I've looked at plenty in brewing records. So by the standards of its day, it's definitely to style.

Expecting a beer originally brewed nearly 100 years ago to fit a modern specification is just crazy. How on earth could they guess how a small bunch of fanatics would define Stout a century later? Mystic Mogg move over.

And exactly which style isn't it true to? Ratebeer classifies it as an Imperial Stout. But that's not what it was. It was a Triple Stout. That lies between a Double Stout and an Imperial Stout, in terms of strength. Amazingly, given the mad proliferation of styles in the last 10 years, Triple Stout isn't recognised by either the BJCP, Ratebeer or BeerAdvocate.

Eventually, I knew a reviewer would say "not true to style". It gave me a cheap laugh. I hope it tickles your ribs, too.

Drinking the past

Mike's getting restless. He's very excited by the beers I brought back from the US. The recreations brewed by Kristen. "When can I come around?", he keeps asking.

I can't say I blame him. There's some very tempting ones. Lichtenhainer, Grätzer, almost the full range of Fuller's beers from 1910. It's been a struggle to keep my hands off them. I've been dying to try a Grätzer. Can you believe I have two different Lichtenhainers in my posession. That's something I never imagined happening. There's a WW I Barclay Perkins X, too. [I'm on a theme-maintenance roll: two Barclay Perkins mentions already this week.]

Interest in old beers is greater than I imagined. My Whitbread recreations have gone down very well. Let's hope the next two - hopefully being brewed very soon - are as well received. Other projects to delve into brewing's past have come to my attention. Exciting times indeed.

I'd like to go one step further. Not just recreate the odd individual beer, but the complete pub experience. An Edwardian pub with a full set of draught and bottled beers from the period. There would have to be an Edwardian interior, too. It could make for a unique brewpub concept. You could even have a chain, with each link a different period.

What do you think? Would there be enough consumer interest? Or would it only appeal to a few weirdoes like me?

My beers (part 3)

From reports trickling in, it appears that my beers are finally hitting the shelves in the US. Great news.

If you've been one of the lucky ones to get hold of some, let me know what you think.

Of course, for the intended educational experience, you need to try both beers. Preferably Porter followed by SSS. Did I mention this before?

My choice of beers wasn't random. They are meant to answer the question: "What was the difference between London Porter and London Stout?" I should know the answer. I've drunk a couple of dozen bottles of each. But it's better if you discover it for yourself.

Whitbread Porter and Stout 1805 - 1937

As promised, far more details than you could possibly want, courtesy of the Whitbread and Truman Gravity Books and the Whitbread brewing logs. I'm sure you wanted to know how strong SS was in 1844.

Below are the gravities of the Whitbread Porter and the main Whitbread Stouts. Like all the big London Porter breweries, they produced several Stouts. Pre-WW I, it was fairly simple - S (Single Stout), SS (Double Stout) and SSS (Triple Stout). During the war, only Porter and a new strong Stout, Imp (Imperial, I guess) were brewed. Postwar, there were Porter, draught LS (London Stout), bottled LS and bottled ES (Extra Stout).


In case you're wondering, none of these were Sweet Stouts. All had 65-70% apparent attenuation. Not as attenuated as Guinness (that was 70-75% at this time), but by no means sickly sweet. No Sweet Stout was produced at Whitbread's Chiswell Street brewery in London until after Mackeson was taken over. Mackeson Milk Stout seems to have been brewed at most Whitbread breweries during the 1950's.

See how handy my Mega-Gravity Book is? How much more useful it would be with a few more recent decades included.

I keep including vaguely-hidden plugs for my two beers, SSS and Porter. Here's another. (I'm not quite sure why I bother, given the tiny amounts of each. I could drink the lot, if need be. That would be pretty cool, drinking most of it myself. Mmmm. 100 more boxes of SSS. Nearly 6 months supply.) You can see them in the table. Now you can see how they fit into Whitbread's range in terms of strength and time. It was the end of the road for SSS after nearly 100 years.

British beer has been particularly affected by history. The Napoleonic Wars spurred technoligical advances. The two World Wars decimated gravities. Little proper beer was brewed in Germany in the 1940's. But in the 1950's, as soon as they were able, they went back to pretty much the pre-war gravities. Why is that?

Escaped.

Last week, I took bottles of 1914 Whitbread SSS to Cracked Kettle and Bierkoning for them to try. I was surpised to find that both had already had a few bottles of the Porter. Neither beer has been released in the Netherlands. Escaped, is a better description. A few bottles of Porter have escaped.

Count yourself very lucky if you caught one.

Oh, I'd be grateful of your opinion on the beer, if that's not too much trouble. Not had that much feedback yet.

Mike just told me that Porter is on the shelf at Bierkoning. If you hurry, you might just catch it.

A picture of happiness

Menno came around with the rest of my beer yesterday. Here's a picture of my happiness:


I'm afraid that is pretty much all the bottles that are left in Europe. I think Menno only has three left.

Art project

I noticed my pages have become almost text only. Time for some more pictures.

Lexie is always drawing and painting. He asked me to join in yesterday. Obsessive that I am, I was only ever going to pick one theme. As you can probably tell, it took me several minutes to complete. But I think it was worth the effort.

I would suggest that Menno use it for advertising, except for one thing. (No, not because it's crap, you cynical git.) SSS won't need any promotion. There's so little of it, many will be disappointed.

Not me, though. I'll be acquiring another 54 bottles tomorrow. Should last me until the end of April. Unless I decide to share. That might sound mean, but I did primarily have the beers brewed for my own personal drinking pleasure. There's nothing stopping you from asking your friendly local brewer to knock up a couple of hundred litres for you. I've plenty of recipes if you lack inspiration.

Should you make a T-shirt from this design, I expect a cut. I need to earn 20,000 euros for the next 10 years to break even on this beer thing. And that's assuming I buy no more books. I would tell you how much I've spent on books, but I worry Dolores might occasionally read this blog. The flat in the Algarve - maybe it had been possible. Or that loft conversion. A kitchen we dare let visitors see. All those things we couldn't afford. At 2 euros royalty per T-shirt, sell 10,000 and I'll be done for 2008.

Whitbread and the ZBF

Just over a week to go to the Zythos Bier Festival. It's always good fun. So many people to talk to, so many beers to drink, so little time. This year will be especially exciting for me.

Why? I should have a few bottles of my Whitbread 1914 Porter and Whitbread 1914 Stout with me. I'm going to collect them next Monday from de Molen. "How can I get to try these wonderful beers?" you ask. Well you could try coming up to me and saying "You're Ron Pattinson and I claim my bottle of 1914 Whitbread." Waving a 10 euro note (or the equivalent in beer) in front of my nose at the same time might help.

A couple of caveats:

1. I will have a very limited number of bottles and some are already reserved
2. The Porter will be just about conditioned, the Stout will need another week or two

Could you be one of the lucky individuals leaving the ZBF with a 1914 Whitbread beer?

I'm so excited again

Excitable you could call me. Megalomaniac, peripatetic and Stalinist, too. Some of these words describe me correctly. But let's just stick with excitable.

There are so many things for me to be excited about. I've found another Grätzer. Another reference to Grätzer, I mean. In "Bierbrauerei" by M. Krandauer, 1914, page 301. "Grätzer Bier, a rough, bitter beer, brewed from 100% wheat malt with an intense smoke and hop flavour." Sounds great, doesn't it? Very modern.

I've been buying German brewing manuals on the internet again, if you hadn't noticed. Hopping rates in lager from the 1870's. Bohemian top-fermenting beer. Berliner Weisse. I think it's fascinating, even if you don't. All I have to do now is translate it.

And my Porter was bottled today. I feel so proud. Friday, it's the Stout's turn. Excitement overload.