Back in Black (?)

In the late 1980s, as I was becoming a legal American drinker, local breweries offered beers in a (sort-of) rainbow of colors, and that color spectrum almost always went to black. Most breweries had either a porter or stout, and many had both. The stouts of the era were not honey-thick and honey-sweet ultra-boozy concoctions of 13% alcohol; they were roasty jobs that ran about half that strength. A substantial portion of the craft-beer drinkers of the day preferred these beers to anything else.

Many things about the constellation of beer styles are strange and unknowable, but this may be the mystery that most bedevils me: why did Americans give up on black beers, and will they ever go back to them?

I suppose I’m just yearning for optimism, but in the past week the Instagram feed I manage for Celebrate Oregon Beer has been filled with a lot of black beers (both ale and lager). The man in the picture at the top of the post is enjoying a new Fort George porter, albeit one made with sweet potatoes and squash. (Most of the new beers have been tinged with other flavors to lure in the shy.) And with that subtle Mona Lisa-emailed, he really does appear to be enjoying it, doesn’t he? I want to join him. Could this be a trend?

Hops are nice, as is pilsner malt. I love me a pale lager, redolent with that light, grainy flavor of malt, and despite my reputation as an IPA hater, perhaps 50% of my beer diet consists of hoppy ales. But what a poor diet it would be to only drink from the pale end of the spectrum!

You can’t find the scent of molasses and coffee rising from a pint of pale. You need something black. Add a silky body and a thick, luxurious head, a smattering of specialty grains to inflect the palate with chocolate, nuts, and caramel—not to mention a bit more roast—and you’re describing an experience you can’t have with a golden-colored beer.

Dark beers do persist in some regions. Next month I’ll be back in New England, and I expect to see a porter or three. Remarkably, New Englanders love a brown ale, and I seem to find those everywhere, too. In many ways, this actually deepens the mystery, though. New Englanders inexplicably drink Dunkin’ (don’t say Donuts) coffee by the gallon, which is to say they have developed no taste for the deep, resonant flavor of a roasted bean. (The base beverage, almost flavorless except for a watery, metallic bite, is treated as a substrate for saturation with cream and sugar.) How did they develop a taste for roasty dark ales?

In the Pacific Northwest, by contrast, you can’t swing an empty grain sack without hitting a local roastery. We know good coffee. But it doesn’t translate into a penchant for porter. In fact, when I’ve spoken to the incorrigible brewers who continue to make dark beers, they shake their heads sadly. No one buys them, except, perhaps, they report, for the stray elder who wanders in from time to time. (I try not to shift uncomfortably.)

But maybe they’re coming back anyway? Probably not. But maybe! This little flurry does provide me the excuse to post a few of the Instagram pics that got me excited. Tell me, you damned heathens, why don’t you drink more black beers?