English Porter

An English porter pours brown to dark brown, often with ruby highlights, under an off-white to light tan head. You taste chocolate and caramel, a gentle roast without anything burnt, and a moderate bitterness. It is a dark beer of moderate strength, 4–5.4%, and goes down easily.

Where it comes from

Porter began in London in the early 1700s, as a more hopped, longer-aged version of the brown beer of the day. It changed many times with new ingredients and methods, such as the black malt invented in 1817 and large industrial breweries, and with taxes, wars and taste. In the early 1800s London porter was a popular, widely exported beer. By the 1870s it was declining, brewed weaker and served young. Stout began as a stronger porter; Guinness in Dublin brewed porter before it brewed stout.

Brewers always include something dark: chocolate or other roasted malts, caramel malt, brewing sugar. London-type porters often use brown malt for their typical flavour. Modern British craft porters run bigger and hoppier.

How to serve it

Pour it at 10–13 °C into a nonic pint. It suits roasted or grilled meat and a Gruyère.

Next to its neighbours

An English porter is softer, sweeter and more caramel-led than an American porter, with less alcohol and less hop. It has more body and roast than a British brown ale and more strength than a dark mild.

English Porter in numbers

Classic example

Fuller's

Original gravity

1.040–1.052

Final gravity

1.008–1.014

Food

Roasted or grilled meats; Gruyère; chocolate peanut butter cookies

Classic examples

Fuller's London Porter; Samuel Smith Taddy Porter; Burton Bridge Burton Porter; Bateman’s Salem Porter; Nethergate Old Growler Porter; RCH Old Slug Porter

BJCP style

13C English Porter

Sources

Checked October 29, 2026.

1. 13C. English Porter, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines — Beer Judge Certification Program
2. English-Style Brown Porter — CraftBeer.com, Brewers Association