an offshoot of the 18th-century porter style, channeled through the history of imperial stout. In the late 1700s, Henry Thrale’s Anchor Brewery in London, famous for its dark porter beers, shipped a strong version into the Baltic countries. Much of the beer was bound for Russia, whose empress, Catherine the Great, had developed a liking for it. As a result of imperial connections, sometimes real and often imagined, the beer style became known as imperial stout or Russian imperial stout. In 1795, Matthew Concanen, the author of The History and Antiquities of the Parish of St. Saviour, Southwark, said of Thrale’s beer at that time:

The reputation and enjoyment of Porter is by no means confined to England. As proof of the truth of this assertion, this house exports annually very large quantities; so far extended are its commercial connections that Thrale’s Entire is well known, as a delicious beverage, from the frozen regions of Russia to the burning sands of Bengal and Sumatra. The Empress of All Russia is indeed so partial to Porter that she has ordered repeatedly very large quantities for her own drinking and that of her court.

The name “entire” refers to the original name for porter. More than a dozen London breweries produced strong export porters at the time, and through agents they shipped beer through the Baltic ports into Sweden, Finland, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Livonia (now split between Latvia and Estonia), and Poland. In 1819 the Russian émigré Nikolai Sinebrychoff began producing his own version outside of Helsinki, Finland. Sweden started brewing strong porter in the late 1700s when William Knox came from England to Gothenburg and built a brewery there. By 1836, the Scottish émigré David Carnegie had set up nearby and began brewing Carnegie Porter. As lager brewing reached the Baltic countries in the mid-1800s, many of the breweries there saw no need to maintain their warm-fermenting ale yeasts. These beers quietly became cold-fermented lagers, losing some of the fruity character that the ale yeasts had imparted. Malts changed too, with early brown malts giving way to blends of pale and “black patent” malts.

Today, a number of breweries in the Baltic region and beyond produce strong porters. Few have retained their original strengths of over 10% alcohol by volume (ABV), but they typically show a strong, licorice-like roast character and the high bitterness that would have been common in a beer designed to travel. Most land between 6% and 8% ABV. Both the Sinebrychoff and the Carnegie breweries were eventually acquired by Carlsberg, and both still produce full-bodied, bottom-fermented porters at their respective breweries in Falkenberg, Sweden, and Kevala, Finland. These are dark brown rather than black, quite dry, and almost vinous, with notes of chocolate and raisins. In recent years, American craft brewers have picked up the style as well, seeking to make smooth, strong, roasty lagers with notable aging potential.