Seattle has entertained a lively craft brewing scene ever since 1982, when Gordon Bowker and Paul Shipman first began serving Redhook Ale, instantly dubbed “banana beer” for its fruity sweetness. Today, the Redhook Brewlab is still around, though far from the only game in town, and Seattle craft beer includes everything from stout and lager to pale and brown ale and everything in between.
Pilsner, ale, beer, lager, bitter, porter, stout-- Seattle might be known for Starbucks, but coffee's not the only thing being brewed here. Just like you wouldn't want to embarrass yourself in a coffeehouse by not knowing the difference between a latte and a cappuccino, you don't want to get caught out not knowing the difference between a brown and a porter.
What Is Brown Ale (BA)?
They usually define Brown Ale as a dark-colored, medium-to-low-bodied brew that is typically more malt than hops, giving it a flavor variously described as toasty, chocolatey, caramel-like, or toffeeish.
A Brief History
The term dates back to 17th century London brewers who used it to describe their brown-colored mild ales. In the 18th century, they contained exclusively brown malt and light hops, but around 1800, brewers started using cheaper, high-yield pale malt instead of brown malt. BA disappeared for about a century until Manns Original came out. During this time, demand for bottled beer increased in the UK, so popularity rose through the 1930s until wartime shortages stopped the production of strong beer.
Modern BA in Britain favors low hop aroma and minimal hop bitterness, with an overall lower alcohol level typical of historical British beer (to facilitate drinking more).
Northern English
These are the forbearers of American BA. They are often dry and malty, even nutty, less sweet, and with a higher alcohol percentage than ales from the south. The color ranges from deep amber to brown and the caramel and chocolate flavors are more prevalent. Newcastle Brown is a typical Northern English brew: medium strength and moderately bitter.
Southern English
In contrast to their northern brethren, southern BAs are darker, sweeter, lower on alcohol content, and more full-bodied. Some are fruity, others more nutty; most have a touch of roasted malt flavor. Manns Original is a quintessential Southern English beer: lower in strength and sweeter.
American
Inspired by the British traditions, American BAs tend towards medium roasted malt, caramel, and chocolate tones, with low-to-medium hop flavor and medium-to-high hop bitterness. They often contain a yeasty fruitiness, and malty toastiness that's sometimes buttery, but can also vary to nutty, licorice-y, and raisin-y.
What Is Porter?
Porter is also a traditional English beer, dating back to 18th-century London. The name comes from its reputed popularity with street and river porters of Central London. Originally blended from stale or soured ale, brown or pale ale, and mild ale, it was also known as “entire butt” (no joke) or “three threads.” It was the first beer style to be brewed across the world, with breweries in Ireland, North America, Sweden, and Russia by 1900.
Like other traditional English beers, it nearly faded into obscurity during and after World War II, but made a comeback in America's microbrew movement in the 1970s and 80s. Modern-day porter's flavor is most often described as “burnt” or “highly roasted,” though nutty, chocolatey, and coffee-like are also mentioned. It tends to be more well-hopped than ale, dry and full-bodied with a mild malt overtone. They add a dark malt like black malt to a pale malt base to achieve the signature dark brown-black color.
The Seattle Craft Beer-Curious Ask: What's the Difference?
That's actually an excellent question. Like the debate on porter versus stout shows, the lines are not as clear as you would think. To start, various brews have been called “brown ale” on and off for the past four hundred years. Some brands label the same beer one thing in one place and another in a different place.
The proliferation of microbreweries and home brewing, though what revived traditional English ales like BA and porter, also adds to the confusion. Just about any difference you can describe has so many counter examples and exceptions that even many brewers and beer aficionados just throw up their hands. Yet most of them agree that there is still worth in using style definitions, even if they are more tendencies and generalities than hard-and-fast standards. There are a few things that are largely agreed on.
Color and Body
Porter is darker and more full-bodied. Both can use brown malt, so there's some overlap, but most fall near the center of their range: a translucent amber to a medium brown for ale, and a more opaque medium brown to black for a porter.
Brewers use a scale to measure beer color intensity called the Standard Reference Method (SRM), which uses a highly technical process involving measuring light passing through the beer with spectrophotometers. The scale ranges from two, described as “pale straw” and applied to pale lagers and pilseners, to forty, described as “black” and applied to stout. BA usually falls anywhere between twelve and twenty-two, and porter between twenty and forty.
Flavor and Alcohol Content
Although what something tastes “like” is subjective, BAs are often described as chocolatey or caramel, as opposed to porters, which are more likely to be termed “burnt” or said to have a coffee-like flavor. Both are considered “toasty,” but brown is often, though not always, sweeter and more likely to be fruity.
Almost all experts agree porters are hoppier than BAs, with a correspondingly higher bitterness, though this is where English and American BAs differ. Porters (British or American) rank between twenty and forty on the International Bitterness Scale (IBU), but English BA only rates between fifteen and twenty-five versus America's twenty-five to forty-five. Similarly, alcohol by volume (ABV), the percentage of the beverage that is alcohol, falls between 4% and 7%, though American BA can go to almost 9%.
Suggested Food Pairings
The Brewers Association suggests serving “hearty foods” with BAs: smoked sausage, roast pork, or grilled salmon. For cheese, the Brewers Association recommends a crumbly Cheshire or aged Gouda. For dessert, your BA would go well with cashew brittle, pear fritters, or almond or maple-walnut cake.
Whereas porter is better paired with more strongly flavored roasted or smoked food: barbecue, well-roasted meat, or blackened fish. They suggest cow milk cheeses, such as Gruyere or Tilsit. Also bring out some toasted coconut cookie bars or chocolate peanut butter cookies for dessert.
Washington state is third in the nation in breweries (behind California and Colorado), with over three hundred mostly small microbreweries and brewpubs. One hundred seventy-four of them are in the Seattle area, making it the metropolitan brewery capital of the whole United States. For something truly special, stop into Lowercase Brewing for our smoothly balanced yet complex, award-winning Brown Ale. Try it with our Landjäger Board, a spicy meat stick by Hans' German Sausage and Deli, served with Hengstenberg German mustard and sauerkraut.
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