380. Fuller’s London Porter

Our first beer from the Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, London. London Porter pours a clear tawny chocolate brown with orange hints and a tan head; the nose is creamy toffee and chocolate with a slight bit of buttery aroma in the back. There is a wide range of flavors across the body of the beer—it opens with dry chocolate sweetness, caramel, and brown malt breadiness before moving into coffee and light roasted flavor with a touch of nuttiness in the middle and finishing with a darker, richer chocolate and lingering roastiness that is just this side of burnt. There are no hop flavors evident. London Porter has a medium body with slight chewiness—sweet, but dry—and the carbonation is light. There is a bit of lingering chalkiness or a minerally character on the palate as well, mostly on the roof of the mouth. A good beer, and certainly an exemplar of the style, with excellent flavors for a lighter drinking beer, but it did leave me wanting just a little something more.

From the bottle: “Fuller’s London Porter is an award-winning example of this historic English style; smooth and creamy with delicious chocolate and coffee flavours derived from the roasted malts. The Griffin Brewery in Chiswick, London, has been brewing fine ales since 1654. The Fuller, Smith & Turner partnership, dating back to 1845, brews an excellent range of award-winning ales, many of which are available in the USA, including London Pride pale ale and the world’s original ESB. I hope you will enjoy trying al our fine ales”

From the Fuller’s website: “The origins of Porter date back to London in the early nineteenth century, when it was popular to mix two or three beers, usually an old, well-vatted or ‘stale’ brown ale, with a new brown ale and a pale ale. It was time consuming for the publican to pull from three casks for one pint, and so brewers in London tested and produced a new beer, known as ‘entire,’ to match the tastes of such mixtures. Using high roasted malts, ‘entire’ was dark, cloudy and hoppy. It was also easily produced in bulk and ideally suited to the soft well-water of London. Very quickly, it became popular among the porters working in Billingsgate and Smithfield markets and gradually the beer took on the name ‘Porter,’ in recognition of its main consumers. Fuller’s London Porter, is widely regarded as the World’s Finest Porter: having won awards all over the world, London Porter is regularly voted the number one Porter on beer websites such as www.ratebeer.com, a tremendous accolade to our brewing team. Fuller’s London Porter captures the flavours of those original brews perfectly, although you won’t find a cloudy pint these days! Rich, dark and complex, at 5.4% ABV the beer has an outstanding depth of flavour. It is brewed from a blend of Brown, Crystal and Chocolate malts for a creamy delivery balanced by traditional Fuggles hops. The range of flavours works well with a wide variety of foods, ranging from rich meat dishes, to oysters, and even chocolate puddings.”

ABV: 5.4%

(7/15/2010)