Nice Cookies

I always thought Porter and Stout were used interchangeable to refer to the same style of beer, but then I saw these two beers on the shelf:

I looked up some info on it and read this on Wiki:

Porter is a beer with a dark colour. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined. The name was first used in the 18th century from its popularity with the street and river porters of London. It is generally brewed with dark malts. The name "stout" for a dark beer came about because a strong porter may be called "Extra Porter" or "Double Porter" or "Stout Porter". The term "Stout Porter" would later be shortened to just "Stout". For example, Guinness Extra Stout was originally called "Extra Superior Porter" and was only given the name Extra Stout in 1840.

I must be missing the underlying difference, because they still seem like the same beers to me.

Can someone break the difference down for me, please?
they are similar but I believe stouts have an addition of a small percentage of chocolate malt (and thus darker) and tend to be of higher % abv

That’s the way it was broken down for me.

Pretty much, Stouts have more of a roasted/burnt taste and Porters have more of a chocolate flavor.

Seems the lines blur a lot between the two styles, though.
Stronger taste.. more of the burn/wood taste than the overly light chocolate, toffee, etc type malts

Grab this before you go:

Yeah, they’re two different beer styles and there’s substyles within the two.

One of the main differences is a stout will have roasted barley generally and a porter won’t.
Stouts usually contain more burnt malt although porters can also. You may see some porters served on nitrogen but stouts are much more likely to be nitro poured. I wouldn’t agree that stouts usually have a higher ABV (even Guinness which is 4.2% in the US is 7.2% in most other parts of the world, and tastes much better there too).
I forgot all about this thread.

I tried both of the beers in the 1st post, and don’t think my palette can tell enough difference to make a difference, really.

You’re palette will develop over time and you’ll soon be able to spot the differences between the two.
to bump this thread again but porters do have a more chocolate flavor but stouts lend them selves to adjucts, like oats, honey, chocolate nibs, ect.

How’d it turn out? You need to try a roasted coconut porter sometime.

It’s going into secondary this weekend.

My understanding is that porters are generally maltier, and stouts are drier.

Yep, pretty much.

That roasted coconut porter looks freaken cool.

It would be a NIGHTMARE to rack with an autosiphon! Even things that settle would likely get sucked up into that!

Hop bag over the end of the autosiphon

With that much coconut it would get clogged eventually, no?

Nope, really wasn’t an issue, I let it settle well before racking and tried to keep the siphon off the bottom until the very end. I think the size of it was just right and helped keep it from clogging. I wouldn’t move the carboy and try it immediately after though
So in the Beer Class I took this past quarter I learned that Porters started in England when British Porters (Bell Hops) would go to the pub after work and buy a cheap pitcher of ale then mix in a pint of stout to give the relatively flavorless ale more flavor cheaply without digging too deap into the pay check and as time went on it became it’s own beer style.

Related posts:

1. I made Guinness Cupcakes So while I boiled my Vanilla Porter tonight, I decided to make some stout cupcakes with a bottle of Guinness...
2. What’s your favorite Belgian/German beer? I'm split between St. Bernardus and Delirium Nocturnum, myself.Delirium is good, but I absolutely adore anything Schneider I wouldn't lump...
3. Beer Bread I was wondering if anyone has a recipie for beer bread, I make my own beer so I was thinking...
4. Homebrew Crew? I'm a noob. I've been thinking about homebrewing for a few weeks, and when we got a phone call from...
5. Your Top Ten Sodas Mine are: 10. Diet Dr Pepper 9. Wild Cherry Pepsi 8. Barq's Root Beer 7. Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper 6....