A cured porous phenolic resin is provided that can be made by cross-linking a phenol-formaldehyde pre-polymer in the presence of a pore former, preferably ethylene glycol. The resin may be formed in situ by condensing a phenol with or without modifying agents and with cross-linking agent by pouring partially cross-linked resin into hot oil, in which case mesoporous resin beads are obtained. The resulting resin has mesopores observable in carbon derived from said resin by a pore structure of said derived carbon that comprises mesopores of diameter of 20-500 Å, as estimated by nitrogen adsorption porosimentry, the value for the differential of pore volume V with respect to the logarithm of pore radius R (dV/d log R) for the mesopores being greater than 0.2 for at least some values of pore size in the range 20-500 Å. Microporous beads of the resin may be carbonized into mesoporous carbon beads.