Dark & Silky: A Spotlight On Six BC Porters

THIS ISSUE'S PANELISTS

Warren Boyer of Fraser Mills Fermentation Co.: BJCP Certified brewer, past President of CAMRA Vancouver.

Adam Chatburn: home and commercial brewer, cellarman, WB columnist and past President of CAMRA Vancouver.

Abby Wiseman of Small Batch Magazine reviews food & drink around Vancouver. Welcome Abby!

Mike Garson, legendary founder of Mike’s Craft Beer, Pacific Beer Chat and Brew Crime, and occasional event judge.

Carnell Turton of Breward Inlet: if the beer isn’t good he’ll say it.

Note: neither What’s Brewing nor Legacy Liquor Store bear responsibility for the opinions expressed within, which are solely those of the individual panelists.

WHAT WE SAMPLED

The beers evaluated this round included:

Backcountry Prestige Worldwide Robust

ABV: 6.0%
IBU: 30

Coal Harbour Charcoal Porter

ABV: 5.8%

Dead Frog Black Frost Dry Hopped Porter

ABV: 6.0%
IBU: 25

Driftwood Blackstone Porter

ABV: 6.0%
IBU: 25

Four Winds Oat Porter

ABV: 5.5%
IBU: 25

VIB Nanaimo Bar Porter

ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 30

THE ORIGINAL MACRO BEER

In 18th century London, before it became a beer, Porter first meant “a labourer who carries things around at, say, the docks.” When a trend toward stronger, dark brown beer developed that century, it took its name from those thirsty workers because this is the style they drank…and they drank a lot of it.

Considered by many to be the first industrially-brewed beer, its demand created monster breweries in England (eg, Whitbread) and Ireland (Guinness). Porter’s value stemmed from its ability to provide malty sugars (and a hit of alcohol) to those coping with a bruising physical workload.

Once porter achieved its massive popularity, it gave name to a place to drink it (‘porter house‘), a food (the steak), and an even more dominant beer style (‘Stout Porter‘, now just Stout). Its demand was not without repercussions: raise a glass to those who lost their lives in the most famous beer flood in history.

Every three months, What’s Brewing gets together with Legacy Liquor Store to create a new installment of our Tasting Panel series. Our Winter 2019-20 round features Dark & Silky Porters.

We showcase each launch on Just Here For The Beer Radio. Winter 2019 episode here →

We’re proud to also work with Pacific Beer Chat to review and showcase our sextet of BC craft brews.

THE WINNER IS

Congrats to Four Winds for brewing a porter that took first place hands-down amongst our panel. We thank all participating brews, including the ones which deviated from core style for the sake of variety.

OVERALL RATINGS

A general overview of how this style did as a group.

ENJOYMENT

BALANCE: MALT VS. HOP

Porter, like many English ales, is originally a very malty style.

DRINKABILITY

As noted already: porter was always meant to be a highly drinkable style.

HOW JUDGING IS DONE

Our unsanctioned competition uses a Zagat-like 30-point rating with a weighted scale based loosely on the BJCP Scoresheet. One of the great things about this format, as opposed to a simple 5-star blogger rating, is that it forces panellists to put more work into evaluating details of the flavour, balance and overall impression before scoring each category.

Panellists are instructed to give an honest rating, not a sugar-coating. As reflected in their scores, some panelists will love a particular beer and others will truly dislike it. Sometimes that’s influenced by factors that aren’t completely within a brewery’s contrul, such as freshness, or just a bad product sample. This is one of the reasons we have a panel rather than just one reviewer: it helps reduce the impact of factors like packaging flaws and personal tastes.