1859 Porter – Seasonal Ale Blog

Harveys Porter is brewed from Henry Harvey’s recipe dating from 1859. It contains Pale Ale Malt, Crystal Malt, Black Malt, locally grown hops and our own spring water and yeast.

It pairs extremely well with seafood and won “Ultimate Pizza Beer” at the Beauty Of Hops English Ale Awards in 1999.

Edmund Jenner discusses the history of the brew in this month’s Seasonal Ale Blog, and The Hearth explore the pairing of Pizza and Porter below.

The Odd Couple – Porter & Pizza Blog (by Michael Hanson, The Hearth)

They make an unlikely couple – Pizza, the classic Italian street food, and the humble British Porter. But work they do. With aplomb.

Lazy thinking jumps to the conclusion that what is required when eating pizza is a lager style beer. But this does little but flush the food down, or quench the thirst. It doesn’t heighten the experience. Experience where each partner adds to and compliments the other – and in doing so delivers a food and drink encounter where the sum of the parts are greater than the individual elements. Good as they are.

For the complexity and richness of flavour at work in even the simple Margherita requires a collaborator of equal depth, equal flavour. A necessity a light and fluffy lager-beer doesn’t fulfill. However, Harveys’ bottle conditioned 1859 Porter has these qualities in spades – with it’s rich through-line of malt and chocolate flavours. But it is the deep and clear smokey edge that lifts the combination out of the ordinary, and marks the pairing for greatness.

It’s an unexpected, yet satisfying, adventure that is even more evident when matched with seafood pizzas.