Hey Porter, Hey Porter

I grew up in the wrong era.  Fedoras, Big Band music, and travel by train would have been more my style.  I traveled by train twice when I was a child.  Once to New Orleans and once to Minnesota.  I traveled again in Europe when in college.  It was an enjoyable experience that took you through some of the more scenic routes of both our country and in Europe.  While on the train to Minnesota, I vividly remember the porter.  The porter was an employee of the railroad on the train who was there to serve the people in whatever fashion and was there to move things, hoist things, and to help.

Johnny Cash sang the song, "Hey, Porter," in which he asks the porter how much longer before "we cross the Mason Dixon line," and to tell the engineer to slow it down,  because he wants to "take a stop and look around."

So, we come to the porter beer, so named for both its strength and, as lore has it, usually enjoyed by the porters.  Porters who worked the docks loading and unloading.  I can't do anything about the era I was born in (well, I do have a fedora), but I can do one thing:  enjoy a porter beer.

London, it appears, is the home of porters.  I must confess, I have really enjoyed porters since last May because it was the first beer I brewed at the house. I brewed it for two reasons:  the taste of the sample at the brew house, and the experts said start with a dark beer when you begin brewing.  In order to see if I had developed a porter of quality,  I went to Spec's to find porters that would give me a sample when mine was ready.  I chose Samuel Smith Taddy Porter.

We've sampled the Samuel Smith Brewery before in previous reviews, but the porter was my first from this brewery from England.   The porter is, including the one I brewed, very dark, almost impenetrable by light, giving it almost a stout-like appearance.  The taste is different from the stout, however, in that it has little "hoppy" flavor to it.  According to Smith, the porter was first brewed in the 18th century (1700s), and given the audience it was named for, may have been a working man's ale. 

Because I grew up near the port of Houston, worked on it periodically, and lived in a working man's neighborhood, I think I developed a fondness for it when I learned its history. If the review is based on its taste, then I have to confess it has quickly become one of my favorites.  I can certainly say the Samuel Smith Taddy Porter is one worth trying.  Mine was too, of course.

If you hear of a way to travel back in time, let me know.  My decades are calling me.