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I warned you this would be a long and tediously-detailed series of posts. And we're barely started yet. This time the focus is on Porter.

Straight up I'll say that Porter was noticeably in decline by 1868. Especially outside London. By the end of the century, many provincial brewers would have abandonned it completely, though all continued to brew Stout. A sign of the style's decline - even in London - is demonstrated by the disappearance of Keeping Porter in the 1860's. Whitbread brewed their last Keeping Porter in 1870.

Tetley weren't brewing huge quantities of Porter and Stout. Just occasional brews, unlike the Mild Ales, Strong Ales and Pale Ales in their portfolio. And the brew lengths were pretty short, often not the full capacity of the equipment. The brew lengths of the two Porters in the table below were just 58 and 29 barrels. A far cry from the 1,000 plus barrel batches of the big London brewers. (The average brew length of the London Porters in the table was 924 barrels.)

There are many similarities between Tetley's Porter and the London ones. The gravities are much the same, the low 1050's. The pitching temperatures are all around the mid 60's Fahrenheit.

But there are also differences. The hopping rate, for a start. the London Porters average about 40% more hops per barrel.

But there's one area with a much, much more significant difference: FG. The London Porters all have an FG of around 1016º, while Tetley's have ones over 1020º. Consequently the rate of attenuation and the ABV are much lower. The difference must have been pretty obvious in the finished beer. Tetley's Porter would have been much thicker and sweeter than those from London.

Why the difference? As many old texts mention, brewers brewed beers to suit the tastes of the region they were in. Brewers in one location tended to brew generally similar beers because that's what drinkers expected.

We're almost done with Tetley's 1868 beers. Just Stout to go. Then we can move on to 1878. Or 1858. I've not quite decided yet.


Tetley Porter 1868
Date Year Beer Style OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. Fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days) comments
7th Nov 1868 X1 P Porter
1053.7
1027.7
3.44
48.45%
7.47
1.75
2
2
66º
66º
6
 Bavarian hops
10th Oct 1868 X1 P Porter
1055.4
1023.5
4.21
57.50%
8.00
1.75
1.5
2
2
65º
67º
6
 Bohemian hops
Source:
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service Leeds, document number WYL756/16/ACC1903



London Porters 1867 - 1870
Date Year Brewer Beer Style OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. Fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days) comments
24th Apr 1867 Barclay Perkins TT Porter
1054.8
1016.6
5.06
69.70%
9.41
2.43
1.25
1.5
2.5
65º
78.5º
3 + 1
5th Feb 1867 Reid Rg Porter
1055.4
1016.6
5.13
70.00%
9.155
1.92
2
1.5
3
3
63º


12th Feb 1867 Reid Crs Porter
1055.4
1015.5
5.28
72.00%
11
2.50
2
2
2.25
2.5
63.5º


5th Jul 1870 Truman Runner Porter
1056.8
1016.6
5.31
70.73%
10.3
2.64
62º
º

Alsace hops
14th Aug 1868 Whitbread P Porter
1051.5
1016.3
4.65
68.28%
12.38
2.94
1.5
2
2
64º


Average
1054.8
1016.3
5.1
70.1%
10.5
2.5
1.7
1.8
2.4
2.8
Sources:
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/062
Reid brewing record held at the City of Westminster Archives, document number 789/275
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/572
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/072













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