On March 19, 2002 11:17 am, Gideon Hallett wrote: .
You could argue that Mild to bitter to IPA is one type of beer with a wide range of examples. I always thought Belgium had the most breweries per capita. With the most different kinds of beers.
They're all really descended (including stout) from the various sorts of (London) porter - see http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000041.html - but they're also different enough to qualify as different beers by now.
Personally I don't buy the reasoning that they all came from porters. Lighter beers are in some ways more natural to produce. The longer and hotter you kiln your malt the lower the enzemye levels. While the brewers may not have known that they would have had trouble getting the mash to convert. Something like a bitter is something that could be made from 100% one type of malt. A receipe no harder then classic english pale malt would work perfectly. Easily done at home before commerical brewers took over. Or a brown could be made from something like 100% brown malt. From what I remember black patent was patented in the 1600s. Things like brown and just normal ale malt must have come first IMHO. Nick