This ties beer into gin.... about the style of beer called "Porter"

Porter was born in the early 1700's, the world's first mass-produced beer, developed in London during the Industrial Revolution, in which England led the world. Developed to accommodate the consumers taste for hoppier beers imported from other cities in England, and to combat the gin-drinking problem in the working class. The idea was to mass-produce a beer so it could be sold as cheaply as gin, and yet it would not be as 'dangerous' as gin. Only the bigger brewers in London were able to brew porter because it required a large capital investment, most notably the fact that it had to be aged for at least 6 months. Porter died out for a while, all present-day porters are mere revivals, not exact representations of what porter actually was, because no one really knows. The consensus amongst present-day brewers is that porters are dark (but not black), medium-bodied, well-hopped, well-aged, and fairly strong.

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