Porters and Stouts with Sean Johnson – BeerSmith Podcast #157

by Brad Smith on October 12, 2017 · 0 comments

Sean Johnson joins me from the Brewing Science Lab at the University of Northern Colorado to discuss brewing the perfect Porter or Stout.

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Topics in This Week’s Episode (38:38)

  • Today my guest is Sean Johnson. Sean is Assistant Brewer at the University of Northern Colorado Brewing Science Lab where he works with Dr Mosher teaching a 6 month brewing certificate program. He has a Master’s degree in Hop Chemistry and worked at Annheuser-Busch’s Barley Research team before joining UNC.
  • We briefly discuss Porters and Stouts as well as their history which has some shared roots.
  • Sean explains how Porter and Stouts evolved to become distinct styles.
  • We talk about the popularity of Porters as well as their decline in the 1800’s as lighter beers became popular.
  • He discusses some of the different styles of Porters and Stouts that have become popular today.
  • We talk about brewing a complex English Porter and where the flavors come from- starting with the grain bill.
  • He shares thoughts on good hop varieties to use in a Porter.
  • We discuss hop/malt balance and how to achieve the right balance.
  • Sean shares his recommendations for brewing yeasts to use with Porters and Stouts.
  • We talk about which water profiles are most appropriate to these styles.
  • Sean shares some tips for adding flavor complexity to a stout or porter.
  • We spend a few minutes discussing the UNC brewing certificate program.

Sponsors

Thanks to Sean Johnson for appearing on the show and also to you for listening!

iTunes Announcements: I launched a new video channel for the BeerSmith podcast on iTunes, so subscribe now! At the moment it will only feature the new widescreen episodes (#75 and up). Older episodes are available on my revamped Youtube channel. Also all of my audio episodes are on iTunes now – so grab the older episodes if you missed any.

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