Stout or Porter?

With it being St Patrick's day last weekend, many people decided that it was the perfect occasion to sink a Guinness or two. Even people who don't normally drink dark beers get caught up in the atmosphere, and find themselves ordering a pint of the black stuff.

While many people think of Guinness as wholly Irish, it's actually brewed and consumed around the world. The UK drink the most of it, followed by Ireland, Nigeria and the States. 40% of worldwide sales are in Africa. Guinness has breweries in Nigeria, Canada, the Bahamas and Indonesia. It must be said though, that the base liquid (wort) is brewed in Dublin and is then shipped over to the other breweries to be fermented. So it's half Irish (just like most Americans claim to be).

A regular question that people ask me is "what's the difference between a stout and a porter". In actual fact they are one and the same. Maybe it's a testament to how Guinness tastes now, that I've heard many people say that they don't like porter, but like Guinness. And what I mean by that, is that Guinness of today doesn't really taste of anything. If you can, try the "Guinness Foreign Extra Stout". This used to be available in Estonia and is the nearest to the true Guinness that was brewed back in the 1800's. It's 7.5%, has very little carbonisation and is has much more taste than the more popular beer that we have here. I say popular, but of the 40% market share in Africa, almost 80% of that is made up of "export stout".

So what is porter and what is stout? Without getting into too much of a history lesson, "stout" was the strongest varient of the "porter" family. So in otherwords (like I said right at the beginning), they are both the same.

Time travel back to 18th century London. If you want to imagine a city in it's prime, then it's London. Loads of trade to and from abroad, as well as trade within the UK. London stations and docks were jam packed. These places needed people to transport luggage and goods from one place to another. These transporters came in the form of men who worked up to 20 hours a day. At the end of their working shift, these guys were hungry and thirsty. Not getting paid an awful lot, they had to make the best of what they had in their pocket, and they sided towards something strong and cheap.

** How can a beer be made strong and cheap**?  Making beer takes time. Not just because of the process that is involved (fermentation alone can take up to 2 weeks), but because of the storage of beer. It's this storage that "rounds off" the beer. It matures it. It conditions it. The word "lager" means in German "to store". Think about a strong and cheap beer that you've tasted. This is the stuff in plastic bottles. It's strong and it's cheap because it's never had the time to mature, which is why it can be sold cheap (time is money) and tastes mostly of strong alcohol. However, the people who generally drink this stuff don't really worry about time (they normally don't have watches) and they are only interested in drinking and getting drunk as fast as possible.

Anyway, back to these workers who carried luggage for a living. They transported things so much, that they got the name "porters". They drank so much of the beer mentioned earlier that this style of beer became known as "Porters beer". At the time, it was common to drink a  beer that was  a mix of three different beers - ale (which contained hops), beer (which was a relatively mild drink of malted barley) and "twopenny" which was a strong beer.  This new drink was called "Entire Porter", and was made to a recipe that didn't need to be mixed. We sell a stout (ok, this is confusing isn't it!) in Drink Bar made by Hopback called "Entire Stout" and this is where it gets it's name. It's an excellent beer which is bottle conditioned too.  In some parts of the UK, it's still common to mix your beers. If you ask for a "black and tan", you'll get a mix of dark beer and ale. If you ask for a "Mickey Mouse", you'll get a mix of lager and ale.

But all Porter/Stout is from Ireland right? Wrong. As mentioned above, London was the place to be, and along with Burton on Trent, lots of the brewers set up camp there. Beer was brown back then (they hadn't discovered the technology of roasting malt until it was black until the early 1800's (more on this later). This brown malt beer required quite a lot of conditioning and this was usually left to the landlord. Nodding at the "time is money" quote again, many landlords sold the beer as soon as they got it, which meant that the beer was a watery brown with quite a sour taste. Ironically, it's called "green beer" today.

The London brewers decided that they would condition the beer themselves. This meant it was ready for drinking (in a condition that it was meant to be) straight away. Due to this maturing process, it had a slightly darker colour than the previous version, tasted stronger and more importantly sold with great success. This dark Porter beer suddenly became the talk of the town, and anybody who was anybody started to drink it.

Up until 1770, the alcohol levels of beer was largely guesswork. In 1770, the hydrometer started being used to measure the density of liquid to the density of water. In laymans terms, you put the hydrometer into the unfermented beer and it gives you a reading in the form of numbers. You then put it in again after fermentation and take the reading again. The numbers will be lower, because the yeast has eaten all the sugars in the liquid and turned them into alcohol. You do a small equation, and this then gives the the alcohol content of the liquid. Brewing is easy right?  When the brewers making porter started to use the hydrometer, they found out that the brown malt they used didn't give as much sugar into the liquid. This meant they had to use more of it, which put the costs up. They decided to use pale malt as the main malt, with a little bit of brown and a lot of dark colouring. This had to stop in 1816, when a law was passed that only malt and hops were allowed to be used in making beer. Fortunately, a year later, the art of roasting malt until it was black and burnt was perfected, and the brewers could add a percentage of this malt instead of colouring. It wasn't until 1776 that Ireland in the form of Guinness started brewing porter. They mainly produced ales, but saw the success of the dark beers over the water. They produced a porter, but were still using brown malt with colouring. It was the ruling in 1816 that changed their recipe when they switched over to the black malt that gives the style of beer that we know from them today.

Although it's not quite the same today. Back then, it was much stronger: around 9% in alcohol. Guinness still produce this style today called "Foreign Extra Stout". If you can find it, try it. It's very good.

What about the other Irish stout that you can get here - Murphy's? Murphy's is from Cork in Southern Ireland and has been brewing since 1856. It's got a much lighter taste than Guinness, owing to the fact that it doesn't use as much roasted black malt, and uses caramel as a colouring agent. It's not as popular in Ireland as Guinness, but in 1997 when it's owners Heineken decided to put money behind a marketing campaign, it was the fasted growing stout in the world.

Stout is not just from Ireland and the UK. And remember, when I say stout, I also mean porter. In the Caribbean dark beers especially Guinness Extra and Dragon stout are very popular.Go over to Sri Lanka and lots of people drink Lion Stout. Baltic porters have their own category, with Estonia being very famous for producing some wonderful beers during the the realm of Catherine the II in Russia. It's Catherine that puts the Imperial in Russian Imperial Stouts.

So now you know a little bit about stouts and porters, and where they come from, and maybe a little bit about what they taste like. I'm reviewing Guinness and Murphy's, both available at Drink Bar, but don't overlook the following we have available too: Entire Stout (Hopback brewery), McCallums Stout (Belhaven), X-Porter (Huvila), Black Hole Imperial Porter (Mikkeller), Tokyo imperial stout (Brewdog).

The first one I'm having is Murphy's (ratebeer rating 81). It's relatively new in Estonia and is available in a 500ml can. The can contains a "widget", which is a device that contains nitrogen. It's like a small ping pong ball filled with gas - when the can is opened, the pressure forces the gas out of the widget and into the beer. This in turn creates the creamy composition that is the same as you get in a bar.

The problem with having a can that contains a widget, is that you must chill it. When beer is room temperature, it's much more lively than when it's chilled. If you opened a can of Murphy's straight from the shelf, it's more than likely to foam up everywhere. The downside of having it in the fridge, is that you lose quite a lot of taste and aroma.

So, the pour - well due to being nitrogen enhanced, of course it is super smooth. Very nice and creamy, and it's nice that it's 500ml, so you can try and replicate the pint from the bar (minus the shamrock or waiting 119.53 seconds that is). It's a nice deep ruby red (it's not black) colour with a great head.

Aroma is not so good. Maybe because it's been in the fridge, but probably because the nitrogen masks all the aromas. Or maybe because this is a mainstream beer and they aren't that big on aroma hops/dry hopping.

The taste - is nice! It's very smooth, not so roasty, but quite sweet. You can taste the caramel in the brew, not much hops, but a slight bitterness from what little hops is there. The overall taste sensation of this is "smoothness".

Overall a pretty good beer. I suspect the high ratebeer rating comes from all the Americans who like to think they are Irish.

Moving on. Now we have Guinness (rate beer score of 90). Also with a widget, but this time in a 330ml bottle.  Pours nice and dark with a more tan head than the Murphy's. It's always a pleasure to watch the swirl of the beer before it settles in the glass. Here's a fact - if you are a good barman/woman, you can pour a draught Guinness in one pour. I can do it. It's all marketing bullshit this "two part pour" nonsense. I remember a brand manager for Guinness telling me how it all came about. The advertising agency were thinking about how to make Guinness more appealing to the younger generation. Almost giving up, they went out for lunch to have a bit of a rest from their work. One of the execs ordered a steak. They were eating in an open kitchen. The chef, being a good chef, took the execs steak from the grill, and instead of putting it straight onto the plate, he let it rest for 5 mins. Right in front of the execs open eyes and watering mouth. The way to sell Guinness had been found!!

Aroma - it smells quite sweet. That's the over-riding smell. No hops, no roasted malt - just sweetness. And I thought Murphy's is meant to be sweeter than Guinness?

Taste - wow, now this is a huge suprise! Ok, I drink Guinness very rarely, normally when I'm in a bar that doesn't have a good selection of draught beer or ale, but I don't remember it tasting this sweeeeet! And I mean sweet as in sugar, not an American adjective of pleasure. Maybe it's because the Murphy's was so mild, but this has such a creamy taste (as well as texture) that I've never noticed before. I don't think it tastes this sweet on tap, and I am certain it doesn't taste this sweet when it's the Foreign Extra version. As I said - very suprising.  So much so, that I am going to have to get another bottle to try, and also head over to a certain Irish bar on the square to check out the taste of their draught version.

So what to say? I can say that I was suprised by the tastes of both of these beers (read stout, read porter). I knew that they would be creamy, but I didn't know that the overall taste of them would be of sweetness. Maybe it's because I am so used to American/NZ hoppy beers, that I felt lost when the hops was virtually non existent. But I don't only drink hoppy beers. I like dark beers too. But I like them because they are roasted, burnt toast offerings of alcohol, that make me slow down my drinking tempo and have me sitting in a chair with a lovely warm glow, and more often than not, a mouth that tastes like I have been licking an ashtray. With a smile.

Of course, these two beers volumes are probably more than the total craft beer volume in the UK put together. And it shows. As I keep saying "the moment you make something taste of something, is the moment people can decide they don't like it". Much the same as A Le Coq and Saku are battling it out over the "premium"beer market  in Estonia, it seems that Guinness and Murphy's are doing much the same thing with stout (read porter, read beer).

Not bad beers - and at a push, I'd choose Murphy's over Guinness (only because it's the smaller of the two organisations), but if I had the option, I'd go for one of the stouts/porters I mentioned earlier. AND, (and it's not often you hear me say this enough), don't forget the Estonian porters. I actually look forward to A Le Saku's offerings at Christmas, because they may produce mainstream middle of the road beers for 10 months of the year, but when November comes and the Christmas porters come out, all of a sudden I am an Estonian beer fan.

Now that DOES sound Irish.

The cost of going organic.

Right, let me set the record straight! I am NOT against Estonian beers! Point taken that I generally focus on imported beers, and point taken that Saku/A Le Coq focus on beers that make them more money because more people drink them than anything else. However, my point is that if I just reviewed beers that are all the same, then my reviews would be.........all the same!

I've pointed out before that Estonian beer is pretty much driven by two brewers. I don't need to say who they are. And like all brewers, they are focussed on market share. They need it, they want it. they want to keep it. And in order to do this, they must produce beer exactly like their nearest competitior. Now, in Estonia, seeing as the market is almost 50/50, that means almost 100% of the beer tastes exactly the same. They produce a fruit beer, then They produce a fruit beer. They produce a wheat beer, then They produce a wheat beer. And so it continues. The good thing about this is: They produce a shit beer, then They produce a shit beer. What happens then is that both sets of  "loyal"  customers complain and threaten to start drinking something alternative like Stella Artois instead, and Saku/A Le Coq then decide that they need to produce something which will get their bedmates back onto their pillow.

What pleases me about Estonian beer drinkers is that they are always willing to try something new out. I guess thats the same reason why Estonian guys always have a different good looking girl on their arm each month.

I used to be in charge of deciding what beer was sold in all of the Rimi stores. When I had put some new beers (not neccessarily import beers - I was playing the game back then), on the shelves, it always pleased me that a large amount of shoppers baskets contained these new beers. Estonians like to try something new. Maybe it's because of years of communist regime, but really I think it's because Estonians buy new things because they want to say they don't like them.

It's the same in Drink Bar/Shop. If we've got something new, then I am almost certain that it will sell very well, simply because it's new. Ok -  maybe a bit is down to the marketing on Facebook etc, but I don't promote beers that I am not proud of, and I don't import beer that I don't think the Estonian market will
drink.


Of course this promotes change and drives customer expectation. If there is a lack of new products on the market, then the customer gets restless and demands something more. And the new product is going to be judged on previous products. If the product before it was good, then the bar is raised and the new product has to be of similar or preferably higher quality. If the product was bad, then the new product better be good, because the guns will be out before it's even hit the shelves.


Which brings me to a new product that Estonian brewer A Le Coq have released. Not only is it a new product, but it's a first to market for the producer - an organic beer. This is a brave move in my opinion, because organic products are very fashionable at the moment, and in most people eyes - because you can't actually see anything different, many people think its just a way of being current and in touch with the environment, while at the same time being able to charge a lot more for your product.  It's even more difficult with beer, because in essence, the producer is saying that their beer is healthy beer. So what makes a beer organic?

Beer is made from four main ingredients: Malted barley, hops, water and yeast. The first two of these ingredients are grown across the world, and it's actually these two that dictate the price of beer (if you don't include the Government taxes). If hops and barley are plentiful, then everyone can have access to the ingredients they need to make beer. If hops and barley are in short supply, then it becomes a case of supply and demand, with prices rising because of this. Last year, the UK had it's worst barley harvest in forty years due to the lack of rain. The barley failed to grow in the drought, leaving many of them unsuitable for harvest. Fertilisers were used in some cases, but the knock on effect is that fertilisers produce too much nitrogen in the barley, which means that there is too much protein in the sugar resulting in longer brewing times and erractic germination/fermentation. 


It's not just the UK either. Global production of barley was 43% down on last year. Hops too has it's problems. If the weather is too dry, the hops reacts the same way as the barley and simply can't grow. If the weather is too wet, the hops is very succeptible to rotting, and if the weather is too cold, then the hop vine will refuse to flower. And it's the flower that the brewers use. 2007 was a very dark year for hop and barley growers. Many couldn't produce the quantity of hops they wanted, which meant that not all the brewers got their quota. In worse case scenarios, the hop producer went out of business. Not only does this have an effect on price, but also taste. Brewers that had been using a specific type of hops in their beer, had to change their recipes because the hop wasn't available. This in turn affected sales, because the consumer noticed the difference. Another scary thing is that the big brewers - AB for example, cut out their risk by buying up all of the next years crop in advance. They can afford to do it, but that leaves little behind for the smaller producers, who have to fight over what is left and pay through the nose for it.

Simply put, if there isn't some intervention or help in growing these crops, then they are not going to make it. Fertilisers, and other steroids are needed to give the crops a boost in times of bad weather to ensure the farmers meet their quotas. And of course, many of these chemicals are not natural, which means they can't be certified organic.


To be certified organic, you have to use farmers who are signed up to producing hops and barley without the use of chemicals. Water too can be softened using a variety of chemicals, so if you want to produce organic beer, then the water you use in the production must also be chemical free. The yeast used in the beer is not allowed to have been used in the production of any non organic beer previously. This yeast has to be seperated from the other yeast. It's not a fun guy to be with (see what I did there?).


All of this increases expense due to a lot of factors. Yield and time being the two main causes. If you're not using fertilisers to boost growth, then it's going to take a lot longer to grow. You won't produce as much as your neighbour who is using chemicals either. And don't forget the constant fight against disease and pests. I grew some hops a couple of years ago and maintained the fact that I wanted them to be organic. I didn't use fertlisers, but used organic materials instead (fish bones), but when I had an attack of green aphids, I automatically reached for the bug spray. Fortunately I checked the ingredients before I pulled the trigger, and found out I couldn't use it if I wanted to be organic. Instead I had to resort to picking them off by hand, or use a sugar and water solution which only seemed to make the aphids more hyperactive than dead. Imagining doing this on an industrial scale?

So now you know why it's only a small quantity of beers that call themselves organic. It's hard enough producing quality beer, but very hard producing something that pushes the cost up and production scale down.


The UK has been on the organic trail for about ten years. If first started off with health foods, then premium foods - mostly meat, then just about everything including beer became organic. When I first started working for Rimi, I suggested that we should devote a small section of each category to organic produce. I was met with looks of bewilderment and questions asking what benefit if would bring to the store. Six years later and there are still very few organic products in the main retailers, and the market is still very much in it's infancy. Dedicated organic stores are growing the category, and provide wines that have been produced organically. I'm guessing that A Le Coq saw a potential gap in the market and decided to fill it.


You can get organic beers in Estonia - Shepherd Neame (Whitstable Bay organic ale), Fullers (Organic Honeydew Ale) and a few German beers are available. As is organic cider, with Westons offering both organic apple and perry. This is the first time an Estonian beer has been produced that has been fully certified as organic.

The CEO of A. Le Coq, Tarmo Noop, says that the popularity of organic products is increasing all over the world. "There are increasingly more consumers and companies that want to do something for the environment and preferring organic products is an option," said Noop when explaining the reasons why the brewery decided to launch this new beer. "As a leading Estonian brewery, we feel responsible for the development of the beer market and believe we also have to introduce the concept of organic products in the beer segment," he added. The brewery also wants its new product to be a beer that offers something new and unique that no other local brewery has done yet and to show that an organic product does not have to be expensive and something that cannot be bought in ordinary shops.
Noop explained that the malt and hops used to make Organic Beer are grown according to organic farming standards, and that the production of organic beer is highly regulated. "We have made the necessary changes in our production process and passed a thorough inspection carried out by the Veterinary and Food Board," said Noop. "As a result of this, we were issued with a special certificate for the production of organic beer"

They buy their malt from Finland and their hops from Germany. It's described as a light tasting lager, with some "oomph" from well balanced hops and a toasty flavour from the beer yeast. I suspect that the last comment might be a typo. Toasted is not one of the flavour profiles I've ever come across when describing yeast. 

So, let's see what it's like.

The bottle is actually quite nice. Organic products seem to have to carry an air about them - nothing too flashy, quite basic and reserved, but looking reassuringly expensive and, well, organic. On the label is a picture of some barley - although it's not the type of barley that is used in brewing (brewing barley is generally two row barley or 6 row barley - which have a lot more husks than the one on the A Le Coq label), but what do designers know? I actually think it looks more like wheat than barley. Maybe this barley gives a yeasty taste...

On opening, there is not the "oomph" of hops I was expecting. In fact, I couldn't really detect any hops at all. There is a faint yeasty, bread smell and quite a strong smell of sweetcorn. This sweetcorn smell is due to dimethylsulfide. I could go into this in more detail, but I suggest you have a read of this if you are interested   http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/dms.htm 

It looks nice. A pale straw colour with a decent sized head. It's pretty fizzy too.

So what does it taste like? Does it taste organic I hear you ask? To be honest, organic beer doesn't really taste or look any different from other beers. Because yeast gives off it's own flavours, as does hops - you aren't really going to notice anything different. Certain other organic items are different and you can tell. Eggs are a good example. Look at the yolk of an organic egg compared to a regular egg. Happy chickens lay much more yellow yolks. But at least you can be happy drinking this beer safe in the knowledge that all the aphids on the hops were removed by hand. Probably.

The taste is quite different from other A Le Coq lagers. It's certainly dry, but this dryness comes across as quite metallic. It's not a dry, bitterness you asscociate with hops, but more like heavy metals. It's quite sweet too, but the finish is of an overall, quite unpleasant metallic dryness. Strangely, it also tastes quite greasy, and my mouth was left feeling like I had just eaten a bag of cold French fries. Again, it sounds like I am saying it's bad - it's not great, but I'm very happy there is at least some flavour from the hop.

It's quite a smooth beer, and the carbonisation that we there on opening quickly settles down. The head stayed for most of the drink, making it quite easy to drink combined with the  4.5% abv.

Overall I'd say there is more hop profile than usual, but unfortunately it's all hop bitterness and no hop aroma. In my opinion, it tastes as though it's been overboiled, resulting in the DMS profile giving a skunky dogfood aroma and metallic taste. The finish leaves a stale beer taste in your mouth, and while you expect that the morning after, you don't expect it during the actual drinking. Not a bad beer, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I think it's great that A Le Coq have taken the bold decision to step out of the mainstream and into a niche market. Unfortunately, it's almost as if they are trying to do mainstream niche. It only cost me .98€ a bottle from the store.  This beer is only going to appeal to those who actually care about the organic concept. Other regular drinkers don't care if the aphids were struck off the hop with a nuclear bomb, as long as their beer tastes the same and costs the same. In this respect, A Le Coq should have gone fully organic and charged a premium price. Make the beer unfiltered, keep it unpasteurised and sell it as a "live" beer. Number it, make it collectible. This way, you are really bigging up the process of making beer, and promoting the fact that beer is special, and if produced with the minimum amount of process as possible, it can be treated, stored and matured the same as wine. You've also got to ask yourself, if other organic products are more expensive than their non organic versions, how did A Le Coq do this so cheaply?

As much as I applaud their efforts, I still can't help but think that this is just another way of trying to outdo Saku. It's not a suprise that this week, Saku have announced that they too will be producing a new beer. Not an organic one, but a beer that is named after their founder. It's a historical beer.

Same old story I am afraid.