Originally published in What’s Brewing October 2004
Origin: Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England
ABV: 4.5 per cent
Buy from Specialist suppliers, brewery’s pubs, regional Tesco
Burton Bridge Burton Porter
There is a certain irony in a great porter coming from Burton upon Trent. Porter originated in 18th century London and became the first big commercial beer style, but it went into slow decline in the second half of the 19th century under competition from paler beers, and Burton, with its sulphate-rich waters ideal for working with new pale malts, became Britain’s new brewing capital.
Porter finally vanished after World War II, but the growing interest in traditional styles brought it back from the dead as a speciality in the late 1970s. Burton Bridge was established shortly afterwards in 1982, initially as a brewpub, by two ex-employees of what was then one of the town’s giants, Allied Breweries (Ind Coope). The brewery was an early pioneer of real ale in a bottle, appropriately in a town where one of the few remaining bottle conditioned ales of the older generation, Worthington White Shield, was still clinging on at nearby Bass.
Burton Porter, perhaps the longest-established of the revivalist porters, began as a draught festival special in 1983 and has been a steady seller as a bottled beer ever since. Interestingly, the brewery’s Geoff Mumford says it wasn’t intended as a simple recreation, but as a guess at how porter might have evolved if it had survived.
Once labelled with a simple stencil and a splash of yellow paint, its present more conventional paper label still maintains a minimalist style. The beer inside is made from crystal and chocolate malts besides pale, and hopped with Challenger and Target.
It’s a deep orangey-brown with reddish highlights and throws a copious bubbly fawn head. The aroma is tangy with orange and roast notes and a touch of caramel. The smooth palate is fruity and acidic, with an orange juice flavour that might be excessive were it not balanced by herbal, nutty and almost woody bitter hops and spicy liquorice flavours.
Hops move forward to dominate a drying finish whose bitterness is never excessive, with more nuts and herbs, sharpish fruit and some mineral tones. The beer bows out with a hint of bitter chocolate and roast notes on the tongue.
Some contemporary porters can’t make up their minds what distinguishes them from other dark beers like stouts and milds. Not so Burton’s entry, which combines roast and slightly sour flavours with the sort of drinkability you’d expect from a beer that quenched the thirst of manual workers to provide one of the best current interpretations of the style.
Try also Hogs Back OTT, Houston Teuchter (filtered), RCH Old Slug, Sierra Nevada Porter (USA)
Read more about this beer at ratebeer.com: http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/burton-bridge-burton-porter/5826/
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