Having navigated the summer, we find ourselves sailing into the darkness. With styles like porters and stouts having a resurgence, we’ve brewed a new Ghost Ship seasonal, loaded with darker malts and our best-selling brew’s Citra hops.
Ghost Ship Baltic Porter is a limited addition to the Ghost Ship fleet. It’s available in the pub on both cask and keg, and you can find 440ml cans in our stores, while stocks last. With a hold full of malt, diligently packed at the quay, the crew did all they could to balance the forces at play, including brewing with using a specially selected lager yeast, to deliver a refreshingly crisp pint.
The quayside was bustling in the great days of sail, with porters loading and unloading cargo for its onward journey. Maintaining the rapid flow of goods at the docks was thirsty work. To keep going they consumed lots of beer of a style that then took their name.
Porter’s dominance started to wane by the end of the 1800s. Practices changed and impacted the flavour, and the breweries chased the latest trends, with pale ales on the rise and stouts gaining traction with fans of the darker stuff. But it’s a style with a great maritime history and cosy autumnal flavours, making it perfect for a seasonal Ghost Ship offering.
Porters are dark ales, traditionally brewed with malt varieties that give it a roasted and chocolatey character. Oats are added to ours for ballast, and a cargo of Citra hops has been carefully loaded onboard. For the Baltic trade, a stronger porter emerged, which was influenced by their destinations and fermented cold with a lager yeast. Working at a lower temperature, it ferments slowly, producing beers with a cleaner profile and fewer fruity esters. In a porter, this helps balance the impact of the roasted malts and keeps things on an even keel.
Speaking about the key ingredient in his latest brew, our Head Brewer, Dan, reflected on the style’s history: “We are so lucky to be on the doorstep of Simpsons maltings, and a porter is a beautiful way to showcase all the versatility out of Tivetshall. All their malts are carefully crafted and barley is meticulously sourced.
“Porter was born out of Brown Ale and used 100% brown malt, but that brown malt was nothing like the brown malt we see today, as then it had diastatic power, that is, it contained the enzymes needed to convert starch to sugar for brewing.
“I was fortunate enough to be involved with Eric Dore, who wrote a book on the Morse brewery in Lowestoft. With the technical help of our Trade Brewer of the time, Robert Porter (no pun intended), he deciphered an old recipe. We brought back beers from the 1850s and I brewed them on the Adnams nano kit.
“We used a melanoidin-type malt to replicate what would have been the amber malt of the time. it turned out beautifully dark and sweet with only a subtle roasted character. I'm sure with the malting technology of the time there would have been roasted character in porters brewed with brown malt, but the point that stands is that the brown and amber malts back then were very different to the ones we see today.
“This would have been true of a lot of the ingredients, including the hops. For this brew, we’ve used just a light touch of Citra, to impress a subtle floral note that should bring overall harmony to this wonderful style.
“With regards to maturation, these beers would have originally been stored at the brewery for up to five months. They were first matured in barrels or butts, and commercialisation led to the need for bigger and bigger maturation volume. The vats got so massive that breweries could even hold events inside them after emptying. The beer probably would have had some level of infection from Brettanomyces yeast - the taxonomic name of which even references its ‘British’ origins.
“British ale and brewing were long associated with mixed cultures, in contrast to the pure lager strains that developed later in the 19th Century. It's also worth noting that it is only later in brewing history that yeast was formally attributed to fermentation.
“In today’s market, it's kind of weird to think about Porter as being one of the first ever real commercial beers brewed. When I say commercial, I mean brewed intentionally at large scale for a mass consumer market outside of its own regional area.
“Alas, the beer world has never been quite the same since. London was the brewing capital of the world, and the beer reigned relatively long - for 150 years. It was quite symbolic of the age of industrialisation and particularly of brewing itself. By the end of the 19th century the only working porters left were in the markets of London and the beer was rarely seen outside the city.
“Porter in its original form, is now aptly a bit of a ghost, as the style has gently evolved. In ours, we see hops from around the world, new lager yeast strain development, not to mention the impact of brewing science and technology, which has come on leaps and bounds since those early industrial days. There’s a hint of the past in its story, but it’s brewed with our eyes firmly on the horizon.”
Ghost Ship Baltic Porter is available this autumn on cask and in 440ml cans.