[Beer Lecture] Chapter 13. The Age of Empires

Historical period: the 19th century CE
Scene of action: London, Burton upon Trent, Saint Petersburg

4 min readJul 19, 2022

This is the Chapter 13 of my free book on beer and brewing history.

The Russian customs tariff of 1822 that finally buried the Burton trade in the Baltics (see the ‘It’s all about Water’ chapter), contained one important exception: porter. Probably, because it was not produced in the Russian Empire itself but the demand was strong. Hence, the Burtoners lost the market for their ale — and the Londoners found the market for their porter. In 1815, Saint Petersburg imported 150 thousand liters of porter; in 1840 only British traders shipped 300 thousand liters in barrels and additionally more than 35 thousand bottles. The illustrative story from that time: in 1865, Russian officers invited their British best friends to a dinner to celebrate the end of the Crimean War. One of the attending English officers later told the story of how startled he was by the fact that the A. Le Coq porter was served as British officers themselves hadn’t had any porter in Crimea[1]!

As a result of this London-Burton reshuffling, the ‘Russian Imperial Stout’ was born. London beer makers, trying to reproduce the thick and strong Burton ale that Russian customers were so fond of, started to brew analogous porters. (Let us remind you that the word ‘stout’ initially denoted strong varieties of any beer, but later became associated with porters exclusively.)

Beer Myth

It is sometimes said that Russian imperial stouts were made so thick and strong because regular stouts were frozen on their way to Saint Petersburg. This statement has nothing to do with not just history, but school physics as well: if the sea that the ship was traversing was not frozen, then the beer barrels in the bilges wouldn’t freeze either.

The word ‘Imperial’ in the ‘Russian Imperial Stout’ is not related to the Russian imperial court as one might think. It was a convenient name for ‘premium’ (which implies ‘strong’) beers in general (and it’s actually being used in this sense nowadays — this time, for a change, correctly from the historical point of view). As for the word ‘Russian’, it first popped up only at the end of the 19th century — in advertisements, of course[2]. (Before that, it would be rather not comme il faut to name something ‘Russian’, as the London-Moscow relations remained tense.)

It’s interesting

As a peculiar result of ceasing British trade with Russia, a local porter production emerged in Polish territories. This style is called ‘Baltic porter’ today and constitutes a strong dark lager. However, in the 19th century, Polish brewers had originally reconstructed the real British porter and had later changed the technology in a favor of cold fermentation under the German influence[3].

In the 19th century, porter wasn’t cheap murky booze as it was a century before. The spread of pale malt (many thanks to Burtoners), which allowed for more effective usage of raw materials, had affected porter production as well, as its cost efficiency was its main advantage. First, the porter grain bill changed to two parts of brown malt plus three parts of pale malt. Later, in 1817, Daniel Wheeler patented a revolutionary method of roasting malt at 400 degrees Fahrenheit that allowed for porters to be brewed from pale malt only — one part roasted, seven parts regular[4].

It’s interesting

Contemporary brewers are now employing this technique universally. Almost all varieties of dark beer are made from pale malt, which is additionally roasted or caramelized if needed.

The Burtoners had also had to change the recipes as Burton Ale was much less popular in the country in the middle 19th century than abroad a century before. The Englishmen considered it too heavy; these thick ales and porters gained a reputation as beverages for high latitudes. (In 1852, Burton brewers prepared a special ‘Arctic Ale’ for Sir Edward Belcher’s polar expedition — extremely strong dark beer that demonstrated exceptional resilience: according to Belcher himself, it had not frozen even at -50 Celcius. Arctic ale had been being brewed for polar expeditions for the next one hundred years[5]!)

How to Taste

Russian Imperial Stout (sometimes abbreviated as ‘RIS’) is nowadays one of the most popular styles of beer, solidly occupying the list-tops of many rankings. However, you should take into account the fact that the British tradition of brewing RIS had died in the 1980s, and was restored by American craft brewers (Goose Island, Stone, Bell’s, Founders, Cigar City, Oskar Blues, etc.) later. Some craft brewers are producing Arctic Ale as well, most notably, Harpoon Brewery.