Wednesday, January 11, 2012

A zythophile rants about porters, stouts, and ales, oh my!

Introducing Zythophile | zee-tho-fyle, a beer, beer history, beerstyles, and beer-with-food blog 
by Martyn Cornwell, a British person.


"Look, will you all stop misusing the word ‘ale’? Thank you!"


I am a fan of Martyn Cornwell's blog, Zythophile. Mr. Cornwell has a passion and a deep knowledge of Our Favorite Subject, as well as an engaging writing style. As the blog post title above may attest, he comes off as a bit cantankerous at times, but frankly, that's part of the appeal. This link takes you to his home page.

Not so long ago, a fellow BeerPal posted a link to this post from Martyn's blog, from which the above title is taken.  In this particular post, I found the following quote:

"It ... makes me [Martyn Cornell] twitch to see people describe porter and stout as “ale”, totally the opposite to how it was described historically."

My response: Guilty as charged. I am one of the Americans to whom Cornell is referring. Like many others, I mistakenly believe that current distinctions between ale and lager have been consistent through history. Apparently that is not the case.

Interesting.


And pointless!


The fact that porters and stouts were not classified as ales 400 years ago is a distinction without a difference today. It's an historical footnote, and little more. Nothing for which it's worth getting our britches twisted. 


Brewing beer at colder temperatures for longer periods using bottom-fermenting yeast was not yet a common practice when porter and stout styles were created in Britain. Porters and stouts, like all ales, are brewed with top-fermenting yeast. To a British drinker, the key distinction among ales was color (Gold, Amber, or Black) and alcohol content. 


When the Germans (and Bohemians in what is now Czechoslovakia) developed what has since become the most popular method of fermenting beer, that is, fermenting beer at colder temperatures for longer periods using bottom-fermenting yeast, the distinctions became less about color and more about yeast. Pale lagers like Pilsner Urquell and Budvar and more modern interpretations like Bud, Miller, and Coors, are the highest-selling and thus most popular beers on the planet.


You can brew a yellow-, amber-, or black-hued beer that is a lager or an ale, but for a Pilsner Urquell, one must use lager yeast. And except for Baltic Porters, for a porter or a stout one must use ale yeast. 


As Martin himself says, what matters most is that one drinks what one likes. From among the options, choose the one that satisfies most. Whether anyone else likes it matters not. Neither does it matter what you or anyone else calls it. 


So let's not get bent out of shape over whether a porter is an ale. Of course it is! 

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