The beer style this month is one of my personal favorites - Porter. In the American Homebrewer's Association 1997 Category description of porters two styles of porter are recognized. These two styles are robust porter and brown porter. Robust porters are black in color and have a roasted malt flavor. They are medium to full bodied and have a malty sweetness.
Brown porters are lighter in color and scaled down in the other characteristics as well.
According to popular beer lore, porter was first created at Bell Brewery in Shoreditch, London in 1722. It was made by mixing pale ale, stale brown ale and fresh brown ale. Mixtures of beers were popular at that time. This mixture was especially popular with the porters and the working class, and was supposedly named after them. The first large scale breweries were the London porter breweries.