Drinking in Boston: The Dark Side

Every time this Bostonist sits down with a porter or a stout, eyebrows rise in surprise all around her. Is that little girl taking on that big dark beer all by herself? Does she really like strong beers like that? Does she know that's going straight to her hips? Is that a porter of some kind... or a Guinness?

The above situation contains any number of misconceptions about dark beer that need to be remedied. First and foremost: yes, girls dig the dark stuff, too.

Now that that's out of the way, let's understand that if the beer is not an Imperial, it won't necessarily be all that strong. Many stouts actually have some of the lowest alcohol percentages. Everyone's precious Guinness, for example, hovers just over 4%, which explains why it makes such a perfect choice for nights of endurance... provided you don't get full first. Porters, too, are relatively low in alcohol content, ranging anywhere between 4.5% to just over 6%.

Moving on, dark or any non-light beer is not considerably higher in calories than "lite" beer, so forget the cheap-ass stuff whose commercials play to your body image issues and enjoy a real beer: one with taste.

So, Porter or Guinness? Let’s remember that Guinness isn’t the only stout in town; try Murphy's Irish Stout, Rogue's Shakespeare Stout, Gritty's Black Fly Stout, or Founder's Breakfast Stout, just for starters. But is it a stout or is it a porter? This is a question all of us know we "should" be able to answer, but when asked to define the difference, we start foaming at the mouth like a Beamish.

Photo by [puamelia] on Flickr, used with Creative Commons License. The secrets of stouts after the jump.