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Carillon Porter

Carillon Brewing Co. | www.carillonbrewingco.org

Carillon Brewing Co.

1000 Carillon Blvd.

Dayton, Ohio 45409

(937) 910-0722

First brewed: 2014

Style: Porter

Alcohol content: 6.1 percent

IBUs: Unknown

Available: Year-round on draft

IF YOU LIKE THIS BEER . . . well, good luck finding other porters from the 1800s. But here are five other Ohio craft porters to try:

• Temperance Row 40-Ton Porter

• Old Firehouse Probie

• Restoration Brew Worx Rush Porter

• Yellow Springs Porter

• Lockport Lockporter

CARILLON BREWING makes their porter the old-fashioned way—the real old-fashioned way. The brewery, which is part of the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, was built to replicate brewing from the 1850s, with a small wood-fired, gravity-fed brewhouse that produces only 1.9 barrels of beer at a time.

If the sight of brewers doing their work in period costume isn’t a dead giveaway that this isn’t your typical brewpub, the roaring fire used to heat the kettle, the volunteers grinding grain by hand, and the ropes and pulleys used to carry ingredients to the top of the two-story brick brewing system should be.

The porter, simply named Porter, is one of the brewery’s key beers, along with its Coriander Ale. Befitting Carillon’s mission, the brewing process and beer are used to educate rather than intoxicate. All the work is done within plain view of restaurant and bar customers, and the workers are more than happy to talk about the historical brewing process.

“Porters were the young folks who carried and curried things, and they didn’t have enough money to afford a strong ale or a strong stout but were tired of drinking a small ale all day long,” former brewmaster Tanya Brock says about the history of the style.

Brewers created porter for them and then, recognizing how popular the style became, started brewing it all the time. Carillon didn’t design its own porter. Instead, it pulled the recipe from an 1862 Cincinnati cookbook that was written for brewers.

The beer is lighter in body and flavor than modern porters. That has caused more than a few craft beer drinkers to question whether it’s a true porter. But again, this is beer as it tasted in the 1800s.

Brock doesn’t even know where the beer ranks in terms of IBUs. Then again, why would she? Brewers back in the 1800s didn’t focus on that statistic.

Brock smiles when asked how difficult it is to make the beer. It’s not an easy process. Two days before making the porter, volunteers hand-roast the heirloom six-row barley, pouring a pound at a time into a skillet and stirring it. The brew day itself lasts anywhere from 12 to 15 hours.

“This is not profitable by any means,” Brock says.