Definition:
Porter is of course an English dark ale style first created in London in the 18th century. It became particularly popular among the roughneck dock workers and porters—hence the brew's name. The original London porter is a very dry, slightly acrid beer made in part from roasted malts. Around 1900, Friedrich Hoepfner, a Karlsruhe brewer, decided the Germans might like Porter, too. So he turned the London model into a lager, perhaps most closely resembling the indigenous Köstritzer Schwarzbier (black lager) from Thuringia and the Kloster Mönchshof Schwarzbier from Bavaria. Hoepfner made his German Porter stronger than its British cousin—today the beer has 5.8% alcohol by volume—and flavored it with zesty-aromatic noble hops from the Tettnang region of Germany instead of the more floral British hops used by the London Porter brewers. He then mellowed his beer in typical German fashion during six weeks of cool maturation. The result was a rare combination of British-ale complexity and German-lager drinkability. The Hoepfner Brewery discontinued its Porter in 1980, but revived it in 1998. The beer found some imitators in its time, but today Hoepfner is the only brewery still making it.
Related beer style:
Schwarzbier