Open Thread Friday: Your Best Porters
Note: post updated with my thanks.
One of the most difficult tasks in writing a comprehensive beer book is locating appropriate examples of style. The problem isn't that there aren't any good ones, it's that there are way, way too many. Worse, a lot of them are being made in places like Michigan and New York (not to mention Copenhagen and London)--that is, far beyond the gaze of my weak eyes. Sometime in the middle of one of this week's nights, I woke up with an idea: why not crowdsource it? So your task, should you be so generous as to help me out, is to list a half dozen or so of your favorite examples of the week's style. I will use them to narrow down my search.
The book is structured around styles, and it ends with a list of beers that are good examples. I obviously want very good beers, but that can't be the sole criteria. The beers need to be relatively available to people who read the book, and at least some of the beers have to be available across the country. Finally, they should be regular, established beers that will still be in production when the book comes out. Except in the case of obscure styles, I'm trying to avoid brewpubs or very tiny breweries that don't distribute out of their home state. International examples are welcome and necessary, but they need to be imported to the US.
I have no idea if people will participate, so this may be a one-time thing. I hope not. I'm working on porters right now, so let's start there. So far, the examples I think are serious contenders include these:
- Anchor Porter
- Deschutes Black Butte Porter
- Fuller's London Porter, and
- (coincidentally) Geary's London Porter
Update. Wow! This is an astounding response. I see it's absolutely critical that I track down Founders, Meantime, Porterhouse Plain, Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald (which was already on the "must find" list), Bell's, and O'dell's. There are a number of others on the list I have noted down--I'll keep my eyes peeled for those, too. Special kudos/thanks to Flagon of Ale, who is exactly right about the Yuengling. It deserves notice somewhere.