Last month I brewed up an English Porter recipe I found on the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins blog: 1881 Whitbread Porter. I've made quite a few beers based on historical recipes like this one and have had very good results with all of them. This was a very simple recipe but, once again, has produced a very nice beer.
It has a simple malt bill with 11 lb base malt, 1 lb brown, and 3/4 lb black malt. It was bittered with a large amount (6 oz) of low AA hops which was somewhat common based on the Historical Recipes. This produces a nice bitterness but one that is more mellow than one you'd likely get from a small amount of the wrong kind of high AA hops. It has produced a nicely balanced beer. It was supposed to ferment down to 1.010 but I ended up at 1.012 with a Yorkshire Yeast (Wyeast 1469 when the recipe called for Whitbread).
Anyway, I've had the beer on tap for about a month now and drinking it a few time a week. Thinking I better do some tasking notes now while it lasta. Here we go:
Tasting Notes:
- Aroma:
- Roast, coffee and chocolate aroma
- Appearance:
- Dark reddish brown. Pours with a 1-2 finger head that lingers a couple minutes. Leaves lacing on the glass.
- Flavor:
- Chocolate and roast flavor up front. Finishes with a moderate bitterness which is balanced by a slightly sweet malty flavor - these linger quite some time after the swallow. Pretty well balanced between bitterness and malt character. It has a bit of a fruity character to it as well on the finish
- Mouthfeel:
- Medium-light bodied and pretty dry. Maybe a slight bit of astringency on the palate
- Overall:
- A richly flavored dark beer. Has a good amount of complexity and is fairly easy drinking. At 5.6% I can have a couple of these and not feel too much of an effect. I really enjoy having a dark, roasty, beer on tap.
