Porter (beer)
Porter is a dark, often deep black beer with a malty or even roasted malt flavor. Traditionally, porter was often heavily hopped and therefore tart. Today the term stands for different types of beer. In the English-speaking world, it describes a mostly (but not always) top-fermented beer with an alcohol content of 5% vol. In other countries, including Germany, "porter" stands for a partially bottom-fermented , dark strong beer with 7–9% vol. Alcohol . This variant is particularly popular in the Baltic Sea region and is therefore referred to as "Baltic porter" in the English-speaking world. A sweet porter variant existed in Germany even before the First World War and is still produced today. Particularly low-alcohol and extract-rich German porters were also advertised as wet nurses, malt extract and health beers.
history
An often questioned origin story says that in 18th century London the forerunner of the porter was a drink consisting of one third each of ale , common beer and two penny ale (a particularly high quality ale, the name of which was derived from the price of a certain amount ). Around 1722, the London brewer Harwood brewed a beer called Entire or Entire butt , which combined the properties of the three ingredients. It was called porter because it was particularly popular with the porters .
Porter brewing quickly spread across London and was particularly carried out industrially on a large scale. Due to a long storage period, production was capital-intensive, which made industrial production advantageous. In the 19th century, porter was brewed in Great Britain in many varieties and strengths. Strong porter was called stout porter and eventually became stout . Over the years the term porter has been used for medium strength varieties. In addition to malt , hops and yeast , the historical porter recipes often also contain ingredients such as liquorice (“Liquorize”), capsicum , anesthetizing grains of fish or coconut (probably from the myrtle ), alum , vitriol , tartar , unslaked lime , linseed , ginger , Cinnamon and more.
Porter was first imported into the Baltic Sea region in the 19th century at the latest, it became popular and finally produced itself. Similar to Germany, the porters brewed in Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Russia are mostly bottom-fermented beers with a higher alcohol content. This may be due to the fact that it was even higher in England at the time of its introduction, and also from the fact that the beer initially imported from there was more alcoholic because of its better shelf life.
A special characteristic of the taste and smell of Porter, which is determined by the metabolic products of the slowly growing Brettanomyces post-fermentation yeasts (in English usage as "Horse Blanket Flavor"), could be used until the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries cannot be safely reproduced. The explanation of the connections behind the typical Porter taste is thanks to a number of international brewing scientists. In particular, H. Van Laer, who still übervergärende Saccharomyces -Hefen necessary for the secondary fermentation long-mounted, top-fermented, English beers at her, Alfred Jorgensen , who unsuccessfully attempted the pure culture system of Emil Christian Hansen transfer it to the top fermentation and, in particular N. Hjelte Claussen who isolated the post-fermentation yeast for the first time, identified it as Torula yeast and gave it the name Brittanomyces (also Brettanomyces), contributed to the understanding. Holger Ludvig Schiönning then carried out further investigations into the classification and fermentability of the Brettanomyces yeasts.
In the 20th century, porter went out of style in Great Britain. Today only small breweries brew porters, for example in the Scottish Highlands . In Ireland, porter was ousted by stout. In Germany, Porter eke out a niche existence until the 1980s (old federal territory) and disappeared for a few years until a few Porter were brewed again around the turn of the millennium. Porter was consistently brewed in some countries in the Baltic Sea region, particularly in Poland , where almost every major brewery produces porter.
With the advent of microbreweries , Porter is being brewed again there and in corresponding breweries in some places.
Porter in Germany
As in the other countries of the Baltic Sea region, porter was traditionally a strong beer in Germany. From the beginning of the 19th century, recipes and treatises were published that should allow German brewers to re-brew the “luxury beer” Porter. Early German-language texts come from Bönisch, Accum , Hermbstädt and a former head of the porter beer brewery of Mr. Nathusius in Althaldensleben. Carl Wilhelm Schmidt describes a recipe for the production of a porter comparable to the English model in German breweries without the use of various, sometimes toxic, ingredients of the English porter. Early mentions of breweries that produced Porter in Germany around 1820 can be found in Hermbstädt, Johann Gottlob Nathusius in Althaldensleben , Friedmeyer in Halberstadt , the Scheeffer brothers in Stettin , and August Heinrich Borgstede in Prillwitz in Pomerania . The Christian Rose brewery in Grabow can look back on a particularly long brewing tradition, brewing Porter continuously from 1853 until its closure in the early 1990s.
In the old part of Germany, after porter production in the Bremer Dreßler brewery was discontinued (around 1970), the Hoepfner brewery in Karlsruhe was the last remaining porter brewery .
In the GDR, porter was consistently brewed and sold to a relatively small extent. Brewing locations were Grabow, Pritzwalk, Greußen and the Sternburg brewery near Leipzig. The standards for beer, including porter, were laid down in the TGL 7764 industry standard. According to this, an original wort of 16% to 18% and other details up to the crimson label color were prescribed for Porter. According to TGL 7764, table salt and Brettanomyces yeast could also be used for the production of Porter. The price was set centrally at 1.02 marks for the 0.33-liter bottle (for comparison: simple Pils cost 61 pfennigs). After reunification in 1990, some of the breweries were closed and the others stopped producing Porter.
Since 1998 the Hoepfner brewery has been producing porter again in the bottom-fermenting building tradition. Several other breweries with special niche products, such as the Neuzelle monastery brewery and , for a time, the Schwerter brewery in Meißen , joined in the following years. There is also an industrial porter production in the private brewery Eibau and in the private brewery Giessen , which produces Black and Cherry porters.
The name "Porter" is no longer standardized. In this respect, Porter is nowadays sold in the classic German strong beer tradition, but also beers that have a lower alcohol content based on the later British and American styles or are sometimes even sweetened are called this. The best- known representative of the latter type is Lausitzer Porter from the Bergquell brewery Löbau .
In contrast to earlier times, when porter was exclusively a masculine noun in Germany, the neuter form is also used today: the porter.
Web links
Individual evidence and receipts
- ↑ oA: Porter . In: Delbrück, Max (ed.): Illustrated Brewery Lexicon . Paul Parey publishing house, Berlin 1910.
- ↑ z. B. oA: Hollack's Malt Extract Health Beer German Porter . 1865-1894; sole inventor H. Hollack, master brewer. Hille, Dresden-N. 1900 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ a b Cornell, Martin: Beer . The story of the pint. Headline Publishing, London 2004.
- ^ Heinrich Grimm: New contributions to the "fish literature" of the XV. to XVII. Century and through their printer and bookkeeper. In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade - Frankfurt edition. No. 89, November 5, 1968 (= Archive for the History of Books. Volume 62), pp. 2871–2887, here: p. 2879.
- ^ Van Laer, H .: Studies on Secondary Fermentation and "Frets" . In: Transactions of the Institute of Brewing . Volume VII. London 1893, pp. 55-85 .
- ↑ Jörgenson, Alfred: Hansen's system of yeast inoculation in the English top fermentation . In: Journal for the entire brewing industry . XVII. Year, no. 30 . Munich and Leipzig 1894, p. 249-250 .
- ↑ Claussen, N. Hjelte: A method for applying Hansen's pure breeding system in the production of English, aged beers . In: Wochenschrift für Brauerei . XXI. Year, no. 26 . Berlin 1904, p. 370-372 .
- ↑ Schiönning, H .: About the Torula in the English brewery . In: Wochenschrift für Brauerei . XXV. Year, no. 44 . Berlin 1908, p. 693-695 and 710-711 .
- ↑ Bönisch, J .: About the brewing of beer by the English for the most part after the English of the London brewer Alexander Morrice. Graß and Barth, Breslau 1806.
- ↑ Accum, Friedrich: Treatise on the art of brewing, or instructions to brew porter, brown stout, ale, table beer and various other malt drinks common in England in the usual London way . Schultz and Wundermann, Hamm 1821 ( digitized version ).
- ↑ Hermbstädt, Sigismund F .: Chemical principles of the art of brewing beer . 3. Edition. Berlin 1820.
- ↑ From a former head of the porter brewery of the manor owner, Mr. Nathusius zu Althaldensleben: The German porter brewer or instruction to brew a beer that is equivalent to the English porter [...] H. Ph. Petri, Berlin 1821.
- ↑ Schmidt, Carl Wilhelm: The beer brewery in all its scope (..) . Darnmannsche Buchhandlung, Züllichau 1820, p. 171 ff . ( Digitized version ).
- ↑ online in the 3rd edition on pp. 146 and 148 .
- ↑ in the 3rd "definitely improved and increased edition" from 1820 on p. 200.
- ↑ Porter. In: hoepfner.de. Privatbrauerei Hoepfner GmbH, accessed on April 16, 2016 .
- ^ Imperial Porter. In: klosterbrauerei.com. Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle GmbH, accessed on April 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Katrin Starke: Old grains become new cult beers. In: Welt Online . November 5, 2013, accessed April 16, 2016 .
- ↑ Eibauer Porter. In: eibauer.de. Private brewery Eibau i.Sa. GmbH, accessed on April 16, 2016 .
- ↑ With "Schwarzer Porter" and "Whiskey-Lager" to success. In: Gießener Anzeiger . January 5, 2012, archived from the original on September 21, 2013 ; accessed on April 16, 2016 .