Modern Flavor Magazine 1/2015 Modern Flavor Magazine 1/2015 | Page 44

from “History and Antiquities of the Parish of St. Saviour”, it’s stated
that “The Empress of All Russia is indeed so partial to Porter that she
has ordered repeatedly very large quantities for her own drinking and
that of her court.”
Porter gets its dark and roast characteristics from roasted malt. Not
unlike coffee beans, it’s roasted for flavor and aroma. Unlike standard
pale malt, it doesn’t provide any sugar to turn to alcohol; it’s just there
for flavor, aroma, and color (though, initially, I imagine color was a
byproduct). Russian Imperial Stout, to be heavier and stronger,
simply used more malt per batch. The roast and other malts got
increases as well; not unlike IPA, Russian Imperial Stout received a
greater amount of hops for preservation. That first shipment from
1698? It went bad along the trip. So, Russian Imperials became
heavily hopped. This created, essentially, the same beer that’s
around today––strong, roast, and bitter/fragrant.
In practice, because of the Imperial roots (or at least the marketing),
eventually “imperial” when talking beer style had become a statement
of strength (at least 8% in most cases). So, whenever you see an
Imperial IPA, Imperial Pilsner, and so on, it’s Russian Imperial Stout
to thank for the moniker.
Brewing
Since we’ve dug into the guts of how it’s made while talking about its
history, let’s get directly to the ideal of brewing/how it’s made.
*For all-grain, you want enough pale malt (or Maris Otter for a more
dry, British version) to get at least 8% alcohol. On average, that’s 3.5
pounds per gallon of output (i.e., roughly 18 pounds for 5 gallons). If
you’re using extract, that’s 2 pounds/gallon. With extract you can
cheat in dark/extra dark DME for some color, or use an amber extract
to bypass some of the below specialty grain.
* The rest will be for body, character, flavor: 2 pounds roast barley, ½
pound each of chocolate malt, Caramunich, Special B, and Crystal
120L. That mix will provide the dark, roast, and sweet complexity,
along with a variety within the dark malts.
* Hopping can be either a (more harsh, in my opinion) upfront of 3-4
ounces of a very high acidity hop like Challenger for the full boil, with
2 ounces of something more light on the back end (Kent Goldings, for
instance) split between 10 minutes and 5 minutes (the shorter time