Historic Porter's, Stouts and Milds - Brewing Methods

[PeeBee]

WARNING: "Mild" turned out to be way off-subject for this thread and has been pared off <here>. If tempted to post about "Mild" in this thread, please do it in the alternative location and not here!

My "Christmas Porter" for last Xmas was the Durden Park Beer Circle's, "Old British Beers" booklet's, 1850 Whitbread London Porter (#97 in the booklet). A common choice, probably because the description says "one of the Circle's favourite old beers". Here it is (as the saying goes; "... not just for Christmas"; well I made 45L of the stuff):

It was brewed back in August and served on hand-pump. Though it is a bit over-carbonated, currently sitting at about 7-8PSI despite "venting" 2 or 3 times; but the excess gas doesn't have much impact (normally I'd expect 2-3PSI for home-brew on hand-pump).

It's good, but not as good as the 1750 "Original Porter" I'd made previously. It used 100% of my own "emulation" of historic (and diastatic) brown malt. It was made stronger (7-8%ABV) and matured a month or two longer, but I didn't think this was enough to explain why it was so much more "rounded" and "lush". The 1850 stuff is "lush" else it wouldn't tolerate the excess carbonation, but it isn't as "lush".

There's a description of my 1750 stuff here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=82917 Which is also where I promised this writeup and it is on a similar subject (that thread started by "Cobnut").

So, I've started this thread to layout how I think I'm going to get that lushness back. I came up with three ideas, to use individually, or perhaps as a hybrid solution?

To be continued …

[PeeBee]

What's going on here. Administrators! Please delete this erroneous post. Thanks.

(I was editing in a missing quotation mark in the first post).

[guypettigrew]

Hiya PeeBee

Copying your own post?! Must be desperate to get your numbers up!!!

Guy

Ps glad to see you still use nuts as an artistic addition to your 'photos.

[Cobnut]

If you have any of your 1850 Porter left, I'd be very interested to try it. Mine was made in Sept/Oct last year (most was put into a "pin" with the remainder bottled - all on October 10th) and I am about to bottle the "pin" as I doubt I can get through 36 pints before it turns nasty.

I'd be very happy to share a bottle with you (a one-on-one bottle swap) to compare our versions.

Mine was made with Crisp Chevallier, Brown and Black Malts and I used yeast from Wibblers brewery in Essex (which I believe to be a Whitbread strain).

[PeeBee]

OPTION ONE: Return to my contrived historical brown malt emulation.

This will take me a bit of work. I could just repeat my previous recipe, but I'm not like that: I'll need to pour over graphs and calculations to make sure my mix of exotic malts fits what I can best imagine a historic "high dried" brown (blown) malt was like. Last time I failed to take into account the likelihood that that the process would stew some of the malt. I added a portion of crystal malts as an after-thought rather than calculate it in.

I have considered using the same procedure to design a historic amber malt. And a pale malt? Then I could use add together the "formulas" to create a mix representing a later Porter "evolution" based on (historic) pale, amber and brown malts (often 1:1:1 mixes, which the DPBC booklet suggests using modern amber and brown malts for plus enzyme culture to make up for lack of conversion malts in modern amber and brown … dodgy?).

The evolution of Porter is described very well in Martyn Cornell's book "Amber, Gold & Black" (available as a "Kindle" publication; even on paper if you look hard and have very deep pockets). Those using historic malts fall into the "Early" and "Late Mesoporter" eras. The Victorian Porters fall into the "Neoporter" era in Martyn's writings, but this Option doesn't go there ("modern" malts, drum roasted).

One day I'll get around to this Option. Or maybe some one else might take it up (there has to be looneys other than me?). But for now I think I'll move on to Option Two.

[PeeBee]

OPTION TWO: Use different malts, in particular use Chevallier pale malt.

I've said my impression of the 1850 Whitbread London Porter lacks the roundness and lushness I expect of historic Porter. This sounds like a job for Chevallier barley malt!

Actually, this isn't such an off-beat idea, and many home-brewers (including amongst users of this forum) have already been down this road. Chevallier barley was king for malt making from about 1820 to 1920, and accounted for about 80% of the barley varieties used for malt late in the Victorian era.

Can't be simpler, just replace the pale malt in historic Porter recipes with Chevallier barley pale malt. I'm sure Durden Park Beer Circle would have been using it when preparing their booklet, except it wasn't available back then! Chevallier barley was only resurrected in 2014.


Brewers resurrecting Porter recipes from the Victorian era have always been faced with including, sometimes large amounts, of black malt. Some like it, many don't! For some reason brewers back then started to get very heavy handed with the black malt. Taken to extremes in Ireland where some dropped brown malt all together and opted for just pale and black malt. It may have been black malt didn't use to be so "black", i.e. roasted at as high a temperature as today? Before indirectly heated drum roasters, getting such a dark colour resulted in spontaneous combustion of the grain. Home-brewers might use some of the de-husked varieties of black malt that avoid the highly bitter and astringent properties of black malt (e.g. Weyermann's Carafa 3).The other option is pick a recipe not so heavy handed with the black.

Finally, by late Victorian times Porter brewers started to introduce crystal malts: These recipes might be somewhat more "lush"?

[PeeBee]

OPTION THREE: Find more suitable ready-made recipes.

This has to be the best option? Old recipes that have all the hard work done for you. The Durden Park Beer Circle's booklet "Old British Beers" (and Website) has lots of recipes but suffered from the lack of ingredients available when it was written (early 1970s). Other Websites covering the likes of Porter are mainly informational "blogs", like Gary Gillman's https://www.beeretseq.com/ and Martyn Cornell's http://zythophile.co.uk/, and his books! Of course, there's Ron Pattinson's http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/ who is mildly obsessive about Porter and includes some recipes (and shed loads of books). There are other Websites too. But the best I've come across for recipes is relatively new; Edd Mather's https://oldbeersandbrewing.blogspot.com/?m=0. Edd even manipulates the ingredient lists to approximate with modern ingredients what it might of been like originally. And also modifies mashing times to unify recipes from different sources. He'll have a book out soon too.

I've done a bit to help make a selection from Edd's enormous list of recipes. But I've been a bit bias selecting the recipes: They are all from the Victorian era, all British or Irish, generally don't include huge amounts of black malt ('cos I don't like it) and generally contain Chevallier barley malt ('cos I do like it). This list includes stouts, as they were, back then, porters (perhaps stronger in alcohol, sometimes), and also contains milds, which was perhaps a mistake?

"Mild" in Victorian times was a description not a type of beer. "Mild" as in "not aged (stale)". But the recipes do share a feature with modern milds; as they weren't aged, they didn't require such high hop amounts (the Victorians did know hops had "preservative" power). Its a mistake (apparently) to think modern milds evolved from Porter. But I guess they had an influence? Some milds are identified with "X", but this is in no way universal.

The list. These have been arranged by date as they appear in Edd's blog:

=================================================
November 2020
Tennant Bros 1891 X
September 2020
Beamish & Cromford 1850's Running Stout
August 2020
Tetley 1845 CC XXX Mild Ale
July 2020
Beamish & Cromford 1851 Running Porter
June 2020
Robinsons 1899 Stout
Barclay Perkin 1880 X Ale
May 2020
Hodgsons 1886 Porter
Thos. Usher 1895 60/-
Hodgsons 1886 XX
=================================================
November 2019
Joshua Tetley 1848 XK Porter
October 2019
Morrell & Co 1889 Porter
Boddington's 1901 XX Mild Ale
Joshua Tetley 1844 CC XX Mild
Joshua Tetley 1844 XX Mild
Peter Walker 1891 Double Brown Stout
Robinsons 1899 Extra Stout
Peter Walker 1891 XXX Porter
September 2019
S.H.Ward 1875 Porter
S.H.Ward 1875 XXXX
Henry Bentley 1894 XXXX
Joshua Tetley 1888 Stout
August 2019
Joshua Tetley 1888 Porter
Henry Bentley 1894 XX Mild Ale
Boddington's 1901 X Mild Ale
June 2019
Reid`s Brewery 1887 Porter
April 2019
Henry Bentley 1893 X Mild Ale
Joshua Tetley 1844 XX Mild Ale
February 2019
T & G Greenall 1862 Porter
January 2019
Joshua Tetley 1858 Stock Porter
=================================================

[PeeBee]

Why is Chevallier barley malt so different? The question puzzled me for a while, but eventually a reasoning began to satisfy me (that's not to say I think I'm right!).

Chevallier barley was resurrected from an old barley developed from a genetical strain known as a "landrace". Forget all the techniques of cross-pollenating, a "landrace" emerged spontaneously in a particular geological region and developed more widely only when a plant-breeder came along and thought "that looks interesting". Chevallier comes from that time, a Rev. Dr Chevallier (or one of his employees) saw the barley growing in his garden and grew it on into an astonishingly successful commercial strain. Other "landraces" existed of course such as the English "Archer" variety.

Cross-pollenating became dominant for plant breeding. Archer was successfully crossed with foreign strains like Sprat and Plumage. Commercial qualities like yield, growth and chemical composition could be manipulated. Commercial interests at the time didn't include "does it make better beer" or else "better beer" only meant "more of it". Chevallier was left behind while other varieties blossomed, but the other varieties continued to be crossed and become increasingly similar as a result (ever shrinking gene pool). So the new varieties have subtly different flavours, but when Chevallier barley is resurrected after 100 years or more, its differences with other commercial barleys aren't subtle!

Diversity is now a popular aim in breeding, and banks of differing varieties of plants are being expanded all over the globe.

Here's an alternative way of looking at it: https://www.beeretseq.com/why-chevalier-malt/

[PeeBee]

There is a problem with the Option 3 approach. If looking to reduce the strong flavours/sensations of black malt, I reckon you probably need a lot less black malt than 4% in the grist. Only one recipe, "Morrell & Co 1889 Porter", has less. In fact it has none at all! About 5-6% black malt seems normal, which as I see it is "a lot".

So in my search for "lushness", Option 1 seems more attractive, but is also the most complicated solution.

So there's the option of "de-husked" black malt. The option to use less or dilute (replace?) the black malt with chocolate malt (I did look into whether a less "black" black malt was used back then, but while black malts were quite variable, they were black! About 1200-1600EBC). There's also the option to add black malt at times other than the mash: There is an example of this in "T & G Greenall 1862 Porter" were the black malt (4% in total) is split across the mash, the boiler at "flame out", and the hop-back (whirlpool?). And I know some home-brewers "cold steep".

Any suggestions?

[PeeBee]

If you have any of your 1850 Porter left, I'd be very interested to try it. …

PM sent!

[Cobnut]

If you have any of your 1850 Porter left, I'd be very interested to try it. …

PM sent!

Replied.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

@PeeBee if you are trying to reduce the black malt component, or the character of the black malt that you dont like, have you considered that black malt could be highly variable across different maltsters ? This is definitely the case for Brown & Amber, and anecdotally crystal malt also (heard recently from a pro brewer that a switch to simpsons crystal malt allowed them to use more of it without the typical problems that high crystal content brings).

It may be the case that there is a different black malt out there that you can get along with. You are already thinking that way with de-husked varieties.

[PeeBee]

@PeeBee if you are trying to reduce the black malt component, or the character of the black malt that you dont like, have you considered that black malt could be highly variable across different maltsters ? This is definitely the case for Brown & Amber, and anecdotally crystal malt also (heard recently from a pro brewer that a switch to simpsons crystal malt allowed them to use more of it without the typical problems that high crystal content brings).

It may be the case that there is a different black malt out there that you can get along with. You are already thinking that way with de-husked varieties.

Thanks. You are most likely right, and I've been taking the view "black malt is black malt" yet I know using the wrong Amber Malt can result in a completely different drink to intended (namely, a Fuller's 1845 clone made with anything other than Simpson's Amber Malt just doesn't come close).

I've been homing in on two beers from Edd's site - Joshua Tetley 1858 Stock Porter (4% black malt) and Robinsons 1899 Extra Stout (only 3.25% black malt, but a hell of a lot of sugar) - as candidates to trial things, although both are a bit strong (6.5-7.5% ABV). I'd give Simpson's a try, as their malts don't seem too aggressive, but their black malt is the highest roast I've come across (17-1800 EBC). Still, EBC doesn't have to be an indicator.

If I get a solution it will probably be a "hybrid", I've tasted a few black malt steeped only beers (modern day recipes) and find the flavour a little too sanitised.

[Cobnut]

I tasted my 1850 porter again at the weekend. It is about 4 months since I casked/bottled it and it certainly has a lusciousness that I attribute to Chevallier, but also a reasonable level of alcohol (5.8% ABV or so), but it also has significant roast malt derived bitterness (almost certainly from the 5.5% black malt).

The Durden Park Beer Circle book (pamphlet) advises 4-5 months maturing for this beer. I doubt that it will lose the roastiness were I to mature it for a year.

That said, I do like it. Quite a lot. It is very much a sipping beer rather than one to quaff.

I have a hankering to try PeeBee's "make up your own historic brown malt" method for a "1750-ish" porter too.

As they say, grist to the mill

[Cobnut]

Oh and it was messy.

I bottled from the cask, but I was impatient: I pierced the shive, but didn't wait long enough before I tapped it and the result was a shower of beer and yeast out of the shive all over the ceiling, floor, surroundings and me!

It took me a while to clear up!