1883 Guinness Export Stout/Porter

As an obsessive reader of Shut up about Barclay Perkins, it was only a matter of time before I brewed a historical stout recipe. I decided on 1883 Guinness Export Stout since it is likely the closest to Special Export Stout that Guinness only sells in Europe. The recipe has probably changed over the last 125 years but this is a historical brew, sort of. The malt ratios and hopping rate can be found here. The brewing store does not stock amber malt so I substituted Crystal 40. The reasoning for 400 L Chocolate malt is "Properly made black malt had an even chocolate brown colour..." according to W.L. Tizard in "The Theory and Practice of Brewing." (Source) I also boiled the chocolate malt separately from the mash as recommended by Tizard.



10/26/2008: 4:00 PM - Pitched starter of yeast collected from Red Ale (originally from Oerbier).
10/26/2008:9:00 PM – Fermentation started.
10/27/2008: 10 AM – cropped yeast.
11/1/2008: Racked to secondary. 1.014 SG.
11/14/2008: Bottled with 2.5 oz corn sugar.

55 percent efficiency knocked the gravity down below even the 1883 Guinness Porter. Oh well, this should still turn out as an interesting historical brew. The fermentation starting within 5 hours amazed me. That Oerbier yeast seems to be some sort of Barry Bonds like freak. Surely, we'll find out in 5 years about its steroid use.


As the picture shows, the beer looks the part of Guinness. The taste is very fruity at first then gives way to a great lasting roastiness. And I do mean lasting. I could taste it for a good ten minutes after finishing the sample. The fermentation character up front was still somewhat rough at bottling. I hope that calms down when conditioned after several weeks in the bottle. An update will surely be coming!