In honor of the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl victory, it seems appropriate to bring you a beer that is actually sometimes referred to as a “Pennsylvania Porter,” a “Philadelphia Porter,” or an “East Coast” Porter! Pre-Prohibition Porter has a lengthy history, drawing on both the English and German brewing legacy that could be found in Colonial Pennsylvania right up through Prohibition, when mass-market dark beers were a common staple of local and regional breweries (and still are, today). Modest alcohol, low levels of roast character, a generally clean fermentation, and more make this a great all-purpose choice for homebrewers who want to keep more than IPA on tap, and it can be a great option for people who lack real lagering capabilities. Let’s talk about some P-O-R-T-E-R PORTER as I watch the Lombardi Trophy parade up Broad Street.
STYLE
Pre-Prohibition Porter is described in the guidelines as being like a less-hoppy American Porter and a less-caramelly English Porter. Those are valid, but from a production perspective I prefer to think of this beer as a dark Kolsch: not a lager (like Baltic Porter), but not nearly as “active” in fermentation nor as aggressive in its flavors as other porters. It’s a true dark hybrid. Low hops flavor, low biscuit or caramel, low chocolate and coffee roast, low adjunct notes – this beer is far from flavorless, but it is restrained, especially in comparison to the aggressively robust American Porter. Much like the Pre-Prohibition Lager, this is an “Americanized” version of an existing style in the colonial sense – brewed using what was available in early America – rather than in the “extreme” sense, as we see with many other styles. For all its restraint, though, brewers err when they make this beer too nondescript. “Low” shouldn’t equal “boring,” so our recipe will hit a lot of notes softly – but it will still hit them.
RECIPE
The base here is actually my Schwarzbier recipe, with refinements. Munich and Maris Otter might be a bit too rich for what we need here, so start with Pilsner and Maris Otter instead, about four pounds of each. The guidelines would have you use 2-row or 6-row, but…why? We keep the half-pound of 45L British Crystal and quarter-pound of Carafa II, but substitute a pound of Chocolate Rye for the half-pound of Pale Chocolate. The added spice feels redolent of a Colonial era barn dance, and as a huskless chocolate malt you’ll get roast flavors without aggressive roast bite: just what the doctor ordered. We get away with the big crystal and chocolate malt additions because we’re also going to add some simple sugars which will dry and thin out our finished beer: add half a pound of molasses, pre-boil. Our gravity is higher than the Schwarzbier, at about 1.053, but this is still definitely not a robust beer in terms of alcohol.