My latest article for The Bulletin dives into the Baltic porter style, and considers Black Lava Sea Salt Baltic Porter from Bend’s Spider City Brewing Company as an example.

As the name implies, the style originated in countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, such as Poland, Russia and Finland. During the 18th and 19th centuries, England shipped porter all over the world, and the Baltic states developed a preference for the higher gravity versions of these beers. Stouts evolved from porters, and in particular a strong stout was commissioned by empress Catherine the Great of Russia in the 1780s, which became known as “imperial” stout in association with the royal court.

Brewers in those countries began brewing their own versions of strong porters and stouts.

One hallmark of their processes was cold conditioning the beers, otherwise known as lagering, even when using traditional ale yeast; the use of lager yeast followed among many breweries as lager beers became more established.

After World War II, the Iron Curtain effectively cut off these breweries and Baltic porters from the west. As a result, the style was all but forgotten until the end of the Cold War in 1991. Today, Baltic porter is still a niche style but more and more craft breweries are taking it on.

So naturally, after I’d finished and turned in the article, Martyn Cornell blows Baltic porter myths out of the water, so I’m sure I got my fair share wrong.

I also highlighted a couple of other local Baltic porters from Sunriver Brewing (Finnish Flash, which seems to no longer be on tap) and 10 Barrel Brewing (the Celebrity Crush collab with Breakside started as a Baltic porter inspired recipe), but since I filed the article, Deschutes Brewery’s Bend Pub added Easy Breezy Beautiful Baltic Porter as well.