A Practical Treatise on Brewing/Appendix/Of the Colour of London Porter
OF THE COLOUR OF LONDON PORTER.
London porter has of late years become of nearly the same colour as Dantzic black beer, which is, perhaps, another improvement of the present day. This alteration in the colour is said to have been adopted merely to humour the public taste. It is very doubtful, however, if the public have been consulted upon the subject, or ever had any voice in the matter. Owing to the causes already mentioned, porter of a brilliant colour, as formerly, is seldom now to be seen; and the common porter, as generally drunk out of pewter pots, is often so muddy as to be complained of as being unpleasant to the eye. It is just possible, that, to please the public taste as to colour, it may become necessary to make it (the porter) as black as ink; and this may also be a means of preventing the public from judging whether that which they drink is muddy, or grey, or sometimes even both.
This opinion, however, is merely a surmise, which may or may not be the case. It cannot, however, be considered by the public as any very great improvement, inasmuch as it is even now occasionally called, in common parlance, black beer, or black strap.
Porter was originally made in imitation of three descriptions of beer, much in use about the beginning of the last century. These different qualities were called pale, amber, and brown, and were mixed with each other in the pewter pots in such proportions as to please the different palates of the drinkers, who ordered one, two, or three threads, as they termed it, according to their respective tastes.
A brewer, however, of that day, to save the trouble of having to blend these three different qualities together, thought of brewing a beverage which should partake of the flavour of the whole when mixed, and in this he succeeded. The principal consumers were porters and other hard labourers, whence it got the name of porter, which it has retained from that time, and from its excellence has been celebrated all over the world as London porter.
It seems, therefore, to be a pity, should its new colour, although given by brewers solely to please the public, be the means of changing its original and respectable designation into one so discreditable as that of black strap.