Sometimes the best thing about these sweltering hot days is that once the sun slides behind the tree line, dropping the temperature below 90, and the job comes to a halt, working men of a certain age experience the call for "Miller Time."

When I was a teenager 30 years ago in my hometown of Beaufort, S.C., Miller Time was ecumenical. Meaning you could belong to one of two beer tribes: Miller or Budweiser. I ran with the Miller crowd except for one summer when we could get a 12-pack of PBR -- Pabst Blue Ribbon -- for $2.25. So what if it was bad; it was cheap.

My taste for yellow, salty, fizzy, fermented water continued through the first couple of years of college till I escaped to Europe with a backpack for six months of undirected experiential education. I discovered an appreciation for things I had been indifferent to in Beaufort -- like nature and architecture. And I discovered things that did not then exist in Beaufort -- art, real bread and good beer.

The beers I came home craving but could not find for years were called porters. Legend has it that porters evolved from a mix of dark and light beers created to provide a "nutritious" brew served to working men in English porterhouses.

Dark like a stout but not so weighty, a porter is a liquid meal with benefits. Where those light yellow lagers have a straightforward sharpness to them, porters have a coffee-like bitterness, with a creamy mouthfeel and a peripheral glimpse of chocolate flavor. Throw in a snap of carbonation and a siren call of alcohol and you've got one of the best-tasting and least well-known beers created in modern times.

Check out this article in our locally owned "All About Beer" magazine to learn more: www.allaboutbeer.com/features/225darkbeer.html

Otter Creek's Stovepipe Porter, Anchor Porter and Steelhead Scotch Porter are my top three favorite brews. But that's only because I can't get my true loves, Catamount Porter and Alaskan Smoked Porter, locally. Sigh.

What they all have in common for me is a synergistic balance between the sweet and the bitter. The English porters like Taddy's and Fuller's can be had locally, but they don't have that balance. And yes, I've had the locally produced Duck Rabbit Porter -- it's good. I'm hoping our other local brewery -- Triangle Brewery in Durham -- will put out a porter. One of the owners tells me porters are his wife's favorite. I suspect he'll have his heart in that batch, and I'm looking forward to it.

I can only very occasionally find my favorite porters at Parker & Otis or Whole Foods. The most reliable source for my top three faves is Sam's Quick Shop. Now that King's Sandwich shop and Parkers restaurant are closed, it's one of the last touchstones to my arrival in Durham in '84. Long may they retail.

While things are pretty hit-or -miss at the grocery, it's worse at the bars. The request "got any porters?" gets you a quizzical look at best as they point out their beer list includes dozens of lagers. They think that's variety.

To follow up with "it's like a stout" will get you sometimes an offer of a Guinness, which will have to suffice until porter drinking reaches a tipping point. And then we'll see them everywhere and even Anheuser-Busch will be in on the act.

Porters are considered by some to be a seasonal beer best served cool rather than cold. I don't know about that; I drink them year-round and at fridge temps. How do you keep them cool rather than cold anyway? In fact, I keep mugs in the freezer for serving porters -- partly for the chill and partly to open up the flavors as the beer pierces the air on its way into the mug.

I do think porters are finding more fans. I learned a long time ago that if I wanted to drink a porter at a party, I would have to bring my own and I still do. For a number of years my contribution of porters would be as safe as a protein drink in the office refrigerator. Sometimes I'd even find a couple of them stuffed at the back of the fridge at the next party months later. But lately I only get one or two before they've disappeared ahead of the thin, fizzy, yellow beers. Word is spreading.

Late afternoon still feels like Miller Time to me, but I'm having a porter. Maybe one day, you will too.

(Frank Hyman gardens, writes and knocks back the occasional cold one in Duke Park neighborhood.)