Porter, the favorite drink of the working classes in London, England in the 18th century, had arrived in America by the 1740s and was being brewed on American shores by 1766. The break with Britain did not mean a break with porter, and the thick, black, bitter beer continued to be hugely popular with American drinkers, while New York and Philadelphia became important centers of porter brewing. Even when lager began to take off in the 1840s, porter maintained a respectable slice of the market, and it survived National Prohibition, with dozens of different porters being brewed again from 1933 onwards. Numbers gradually fell, however, until by the early 1970s there were only two American porters left. And then a small brewery in San Francisco decided to revive the style.

Join historian, Martyn Cornell, for a deep dive into the history of porter in the United States.

Martyn Cornell is an award-winning author and writer specializing in the history of beer and brewing. He is a member of the editorial advisory board of Brewery History, the journal of the Brewery History Society and a founder member of the British Guild of Beer Writers, and has written five books and numerous articles on beer and beer history, which have been published in places as far apart as Hong Kong and the United States, and translated into languages including Danish, German, Portuguese and Italian. He has delivered seminars on the subjects of beer and beer history in Denmark, the Netherlands, the UK, the United States and Brazil and appeared on television and radio talking about the history of beer. He is a Member of the Royal Historical Society and a former national newspaper journalist, having worked on The Times and The Daily Telegraph.

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