Batch 18

“Great stroll porter: a porter with hints of caramel, balanced by roasty tones and with classic hops bitterness. A soft but long lasting taste that you can drink a lot of. Max. alcohol: 5.6%.” Doesn’t this sound absolutely terrific?

Even with the above summary of the non-official type “stroll porter” it’s a bit diffuse what it actually is but I like to think it’s a porter, more to the English type, that has low ABV but comes with a lot of flavor. The recipe I cloned for this batch was named “Perfect porter”, which is the exact same name as the recipe I got together with the beginners kit in BATCH 1.

However, even if they’re the same style and have the same name they differ a bit. For example this recipe contains peated and Caramunich malt (German caramel malt) as the first recipe contains light chocolate and crystal/caramel malt (English caramel malt) and no peated malt. Obviously both recipe creators thought their recipes was perfect and they’re good, but I personally like to call them stroll porters.

The amount of peated malts was a bit low with only 40g to a 12 liter batch so when I was doing the grain crush I added another 60g to a total of 100g to make it more interesting. The beer turned out tasty and the smoky flavor was apparent but not in a negative way, I would however have liked a bit more flavor from the roasted malts but this might also be because of the low ABV. Low ABV beers have a tendency to feel watery because of the small grain bill compared to water ratio. There are ways to make a small grain bill feel thicker or have a better mouthfeel but that can also be tricky as many of them relies on tricks that makes the beer sweeter. Anyhow, this beer didn’t feel watery and it might be because of the style itself compared to other styles that is lighter because with the crystal/caramel malts the beer becomes sweeter and can create a thicker mouthfeel. I definitely enjoy lighter porters and stouts but there’s something special with the stronger beers, there’s punch to them.

A good recipe and beer but I don’t think this is what I would call “the perfect stroll porter” so the only way to get there is to try more recipes and see!