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What’s the difference between porter and stout?

January 29, 2013Keith Gribbins

porter vs. stout
Porter or stout? We don’t rightly know.

Like many old beer stories, porters and stouts have a hazy history together. Today, American craft brewers produce both stouts and porters, marketed and sold as individual styles and flavors, but what exactly are the differences in these two seemingly similar beers? Is a porter just a lighter, sweeter stout? Is a stout just a stronger porter? Is it all about roasted barley? Is it all about chocolate malts? What is the difference between porter and stout?

According to The Beer Connoisseur Online: “If we go back to the latter half of the 18th century and the first part of the 19th century, stout, more particularly brown stout, was simply the name for the strongest version of porter. Here’s a quote from a book called ‘A General Dictionary of Commerce, Trade and Manufactures,’ published in 1810: ‘Porter may be divided into two classes, namely brown-stout and porter properly so called … Brown-stout is only a fuller-bodied kind of porter than that which serves for ordinary drinking. A great deal of this is exported to America and the West Indies.”

Since porters are our Beer of the Month, we wanted to know the differences between stouts and porters in the minds of craft brewers, so we decided to ask three bigwigs of the craft brewing industry (Great Lakes Brewing, Cigar City and Founders). They provided some pretty interesting insights.

Luke Purcell, brewer & field sales quality specialist with Great Lakes Brewing Co. (Cleveland, Ohio)

“You can ask any number of brewers this question and get just as many different answers. The simple answer is that there really is no difference between the two. The porter style most likely derived from English brown ales and was named for the street porters, or carriers, in London at the time. The word stout was used to describe a stronger porter. Almost all porters that were brewed to be a bit stronger were referred to as stout porter. Eventually, the word porter was dropped from their names and the new style was born. I think that, these days, most brewers would agree that there is a huge crossover between the two styles. It gets even more clouded now with all of the different variations of each style. It really depends on the brewer to decide what he or she wants it to be. We brewed a winter stout once here at Great Lakes, and only after it was done fermenting one of the brewers suggested that it would sound better if we called it winter porter instead. It’s been our Alberta Clipper Winter Porter ever since.”

Dave Engbers, co-founder of Founders Brewing Co. (Grand Rapids, Mich.)

“There always seems to be a very gray line between porters and stouts. We all know the history, a stout was a bigger version of a porter. It gets very tricky for us because we brew the Founders Porter as a robust porter, so you can’t see though it. It’s as dark as any stout. The thing we talk about a lot is that our porter has absolutely tons of chocolate malt in it. It’s got a fairly complex malt bill. It’s brewed with a lot of Munich and crystal malt, so it’s often said that our porter is more of a stout. So we definitely see a gray line there. As you know, our beers have all evolved over the years. There was really an evolution in Founders beer, especially around 2001, where we became bigger and bolder. The porter was one of those beers that had been tweaked in a big way, so that might account for the variation in style.”

Wayne Wambles, brewmaster at Cigar City Brewing (Tampa, Fla.)

“If one were to go back in history and look at style origins, you would find that porter and stout are very similar beers. Stout used to mean strong or fortified beer and actually had nothing to do with color or a style per se. In order to segregate porter and stout, I do have my vision of what each of them are before we ever produce them. My approach to a stout would be to use a larger percentage of roasted barley. I subscribe to the never say never camp, so I can’t say that I would never put roasted barley in a porter but, under certain circumstances, I would consider it. Simply put, most people approach it from the perspective of stout being roasted barley-centric, which gives coffee to espresso aroma and flavor, and porter being more chocolate and mocha oriented by the use of chocolate malt.”

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. MyBeerGuy says

    January 29, 2014 at 11:08 pm

    What is the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/NdRXvtZj0O

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  2. HopJohnson says

    January 27, 2014 at 12:39 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Some #Sundayreading: What’s the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/8nFGR9BcqC

    Log in to Reply
  3. canpixacerveser says

    January 27, 2014 at 4:02 am

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Some #Sundayreading: What’s the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/8nFGR9BcqC

    Log in to Reply
  4. CervezaMertxe says

    January 26, 2014 at 6:15 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Some #Sundayreading: What’s the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/8nFGR9BcqC

    Log in to Reply
  5. HoBso says

    January 26, 2014 at 1:14 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Some #Sundayreading: What’s the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/8nFGR9BcqC

    Log in to Reply
  6. PensacolaBeer says

    July 16, 2013 at 9:29 am

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Some #Sundayreading: What’s the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/8nFGR9BcqC

    Log in to Reply
  7. RedTorchGinger says

    July 14, 2013 at 6:18 pm

    RT @BeerPadawan: Ahh Beer – Reassuringly confusing! “RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Whats the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/S2NK1t…

    Log in to Reply
  8. BeerPadawan says

    July 14, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    Ahh Beer – Reassuringly confusing! “RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Whats the difference between porter and stout? http://t.co/S2NK1t8u95“

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Trackbacks

  1. What Is the Difference Between Stout and Porter? - Shamrock Craic says:
    December 24, 2018 at 9:40 am

    […] barley, which lends the beverage its coffee flavors. Wayne Wambles of Tampa brewery Cigar City told Craft Beer Brewing magazine that he would typically differentiate between the two beers through […]

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  2. The Difference Between Porter and Stout Beer: It's Complicated | BrewBroski says:
    March 21, 2018 at 9:34 pm

    […] yet keep calling them stouts. Basically it’s become the wild wild west. When the magazine Craft Brewing Business actually asked some of the country’s most famous craft brewers this simple question, they […]

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  3. To Freeport! No, we’re not going to LL Bean!!!! (Maine Beer Co. & Gritty McDuff’s Brewing Co.) | galonthebeertrail2015 says:
    May 27, 2015 at 8:52 pm

    […] is kind of an interesting article that asks brewers that very question. Doesn’t seem to be a clear-cut distinction. Consensus […]

    Log in to Reply
  4. Porter versus Stout … Fight! | Craft Beer Vancouver says:
    February 11, 2015 at 1:13 pm

    […] try to forgo spending too much time on the whole history of the styles since many people with more experience and authority have spoken better about it than I […]

    Log in to Reply
  5. Six Packs for Christmas | MY LIFE AS A HOME BREWER says:
    December 9, 2014 at 9:15 pm

    […] of beer. The difference is summed up well by Wayne Wambles, brewmaster at Cigar City Brewing in Craft Brewing Business, “’Simply put, most people approach it from the perspective of stout being roasted […]

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  6. Beer Styles says:
    May 14, 2014 at 10:10 am

    […] Porters and stouts fall within the ale category. The difference between them is a bit blurry. Craft Brewing Business asked three master brewers about the difference, and the consensus was that there’s a lot of […]

    Log in to Reply
  7. Messed Up Stout, Now a Porter? - Home Brew Forums says:
    April 30, 2013 at 1:01 pm

    […] a porter and a stout that one has roasted barley in it? However… even that's debateable. https://www.craftbrewingbusiness.com/beer-of-the-month/what-is-the-difference-between-porter-and-stou… http://www.beerconnoisseur.com/porter-versus-stout Gary […]

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  8. Not Just for St. Patrick’s | The Hoppy Nomad says:
    March 24, 2013 at 1:51 am

    […] explanation.  After that encounter, I came across an article on craftbrewingbusiness.com titled, “What’s the difference between a porter and a stout?”  The article asked the brew masters of Great Lakes Brewing Co., Founders Brewing Co., and Cigar City […]

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