Porter Recipe – Brewing A Perfect Porter

I love dark beers of all kinds but porter has to be one of my favourite styles of beer. I have brewed porters at home and commercially and have tried plenty of styles so this is porter recipe going to share is one of my favourites and I have worked on it a lot.

The recipe here is for a pretty traditional English porter and has an addition of wheat to round out the mouthfeel. I have also listed some of the ingredients and flavours you might want to consider to tweak the recipe to your own liking.

A History of Porter

If you have come looking for a history of porter as a beer style I’m afraid you are going to be a little disappointed. Beer history isn’t a strong point of mine. There are plenty of more knowledgeable people to read.

The background is porter is an English beer style that started in London. The name “Porter” supposedly derives from workers who used to move cargo and objects in the streets and from the river who had a particular fondness for the dark beer.

Difference Between Stout and Porter?

There is not much difference between stout and porter and the names have been used interchangeably throughout dark beers existence.

Guinness Extra Stout was originally known as Guinness Extra Superior Porter so a large part of the difference comes down to marketing.

From a brewers perspective a lot of the brewers I have spoken to would define the difference between to two with the presence of a fair amount of roasted barley. 

Stout has roasted barley and porter doesn’t. However, my porter recipe included roasted barley so it doesn’t follow this rule.

Porter As A Style

Brown, Robust, Baltic, English, American and Smoked Can all be used to describe variations of porter. This means that there is some room for experimentation.

The ABV of different porters can range quite significantly, from around 4% upto 9% or more for Imperial versions.

The colour ranges from dark brown or ruby through to black.

Hops can be subtle with just enough bitterness to balance the malt or in American porters be quite bold with dry hopping and aroma hops used in abundance.

The porter recipe I have included below is am English style porter of moderate ABV and allows you to tweak to your heart’s content. If you want to you can add more aroma hops, boost the ABV or add additional flavours like coffee, fruit and spices.

Ingredients

Malt: Typically, many porter recipes will be made of of an English or US base malt such as Maris otter or pale malt and then a variety of dark roasted malts and crystal malt.

Oats and flaked barley are commonly used in porters to lend a smooth and fuller mouth feel.

English porter recipes tend to include a percentage brown malt and some include roasted grains like roasted barley, sparingly.

Baltic porter may use Munich or Vienna malt as a base rather than pale malt.

Smoked porters, of course, must include a smoked element which is typically a portion of smoked malt. 

Hops: Hops can vary quite widely in a porter depending on the style being brewed. English versions will predominantly use English hops, American versions can emphasise hops more using really aromatic hops and even dry-hopping although this isn’t always the case.

Hopping rates will span low to high, it will depend if you want a malt driven beer with just enough bitterness and aroma to balance the malt or you could aim for a definite hop character in its own right.

Yeast: Predominantly, neutral or medium ester producing ale yeasts are used for fermenting porter. S-04 and US-05 are common dry yeasts. Liquid yeast strains have a lot more options but mainly focused on British or US strains.

The exception to this rule is perhaps Baltic Porter which is fermented with a lager yeast and at lower temperatures than every other variety of porter. 

Other Ingredients

Porter is typically a rich, malty and deep flavoured beer and works well as a style to add additional flavours to.

• Fruit
• Spices
• Coffee
• Wood

Fruit: I am fond of fruit porters but the fruit you use needs to be considered carefully. Dark, rich stone-fruits such as plums work really well as do cherries. Raspberries can work also but you need to be careful the beer isn’t too tart. This guide on adding fruit to your homebrew will help.

You will need to use more fruit in a porter than other beer style to get enough flavour to compete with the dark malts.

Spices: Similarly, spices work well against the rich flavour of dark malts. Vanilla, cinnamon, cloves and what I would consider to be sweet spices are quite common. I have also tried a porter with peppercorns that was quite unique. Nuts also work well in porter on some occasions.

Coffee & Chocolate: I have included both coffee and chocolate together as they are both flavours that compliment the flavours provided by the roasted and dark malts. Use plenty to get the flavour of coffee or chocolate into the finished beer for it to be noticeable.

Wood: Using oak chunks soaked in alcohol works well in higher ABV beers that are really rich. You need a stronger porter otherwise the wood will completely overwhelm everything else.

Porter Recipe

This porter recipe is for a fairly typical English style porter. Feel free to make some tweaks and perhaps consider adding some of the additional ingredients or flavourings above to make the recipe your own.