London Hot Spots: The Porter Brewery

The ambulator; or, The stranger’s companion in a tour round London (1807)

Porter beer rose in popularity in the 1700s, and would begin to dwindle in popularity in the 1820s. Much of its popularity was related to its favor with the working class of industrializing London. According to a letter from Cesar de Saussure in 1726: “In this country nothing but beer is drunk, and it is made in several qualities. Small beer is what everyone drinks when thirsty; it is used even in the best houses and costs only a penny the pot. Another kind of beer is called porter, meaning carrier, because the greater quantity of this beer is consumed by the working classes. It is a thick and strong beverage, and the effect it produces, if drunk in excess, is the same as that of wine; this porter costs threepence a pot….”

The breweries in London primarily were located along the River Thames, allowing for easy transport of materials for brewing, including hops from Kent and malt from Hertfordshire. The large breweries making porter at the beginning of the 19th Century included Barclay Perkins, Trumans, Whitbread, Reids and Calvert and Hoare (An Economic History of London 1800-1914, 2002). Large breweries could employ up to several hundred workers, who were “predominantly male and relatively high paid” (An Economic History of London 1800-1914, 2002, p 148).

As tastes began to favor milder ales from the 1820s to 1850s, and then pale ales from the 1850s, London’s porter breweries slowly began to address technological and other problems created by changing from brewing porter to ale. This saw the rise of start up ale brewers in the 1830s to 1880s (An Economic History of London 1800-1914, 2002).