pontificate about talk missing local beer styles? Were I still a Pennsylvania resident, I'd have ample opportunity to talk about Pennsylvania Swankey in all its possible permutations, but here in Seattle, something much more familiar is (mostly) missing - porters and ‘steamed beers.’
I recently had the slightly surreal experience of re-reading an old column and only partway through realizing that I'd written it, though to be fair, it's been a while and my smaller child is continuing an ongoing campaign of disallowing sleep in her general vicinity. But after reviewing the piece on Seattle beer history, I was struck by the mention of porter, and duly went back to my source material to see if there were more mentions of Seattle porter – and there were, albeit only for the late 19th century. And while there are a few good local porters nowadays (shoutouts to Machine House, Reuben's Brews and Georgetown Brewing), they aren't always easy to find on tap very much beyond the immediate neighborhood of each brewery. This is true of British styles in general, which is a bit ironic since the earliest beers in the Good Beer Revival in the Pacific Northwest were very much along those lines, especially those brewed by or under the tutelage of Bert Grant. And compared to our previous Philadelphia-area stomping grounds, there are vanishingly few beers imported from the UK to this coast; while not surprising, given the cost and potential quality concerns, there are few locals beers that fill that gap. A good bitter is hard to find (again, Machine House excepted), but mediocre IPAs are ubiquitous. That's not to say there are not some great Seattle IPAs - Cloudburst does an amazing job - but there are so, so many that only elicit a 'meh.'
But back to porters - I was quite envious of the recent wealth of porters around Britain mentioned by Boak and Bailey, and hope to find a good many of them still around when I'm next in London over the holidays, but I think a lot of my porter problem (kids, feel free to steal The Porter Problem for your new free-jazz combo) is the absence of Troegs Dead Reckoning Porter; to me, this is the beer that means fall has arrived. While I'd love a special coast-to-coast tap sending me Troegs (and, let's be honest, Yards Brawler, my favorite US mild) from the source(s), I'd hoped that there would be a readily-available local equivalent; if there is, I have yet to find it. So, let this be a challenge to Seattle brewers - make your best porter! Try a few historical recipes! Feel free to make it hoppy if you must - hey, Troegs did it, and it's wonderful.
Seattle used to be (briefly) known for portersit would be lovely to see more of them on the local market. Now, about those equally-disappeared ‘steamed beers’
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