Fremlin malts in 1897

Let’s take a look at what went into all those Pale Ales. Starting off with the malts.

Of which there were five. Which is quite a lot for a brewery that specialised in Pale Ales. Unsurprisingly, most of it was pale malt. Though there was also some high-dried malt in a couple of beers. Not so odd in a dark beer like Cooper. More unusual in a Pale Ale like BB.

Interestingly, all three Black Beers have chocolate malt rather than black malt as the main roasted element. I have seen that elsewhere – for example at Whitbread – but it only started much later, after WW I. Fremlin definitely seem to have been early adopters.

Porter and Stout also both contain brown malt. That favourite London ingredient. Which means these beers must have been similar in character to the equivalent beers from the capital.

It’s fascinating to see how quickly Oat Stout spread. I assume that’s why malted oats turn up in the Porter and Stout. Compared to the Oatmeal Stouts brewed after WW I, the percentage of oats is quite high. Also, it malted form. Whereas later it was almost always in flaked form.

The malt percentage is fairly decent, mostly around 70%-75%.  

Fremlin malts in 1897
Beer	Style	pale malt	high dried malt	brown malt	choc. malt	malted oats	total malt
X	Mild	70.59%					70.59%
H	Pale Ale	72.00%					72.00%
BA	Pale Ale	69.77%					69.77%
BA C	Pale Ale	70.59%					70.59%
BA L	Pale Ale	75.00%					75.00%
BB	Pale Ale	35.29%	35.29%				70.59%
BB L	Pale Ale	75.00%					75.00%
PA	Pale Ale	70.59%					70.59%
PA L	Pale Ale	72.00%					72.00%
IPA	IPA	70.59%					70.59%
Pilsener	Pilsener	80.00%					80.00%
P	Porter	40.24%		14.63%	10.98%	7.32%	73.17%
Cooper	Porter	42.86%	18.37%		12.24%		73.47%
DS	Stout	63.91%		7.10%	5.33%	3.55%	79.88%
Source:
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/22.

 

 

Let's Brew - 1894 Cannon KKK

Strongest of Cannon’s range was KKK. Not that it’s all that strong by 19th-century standards.

My guess is that this was considered an Old Ale or Stock Ale. Not 100% sure about that. Though their parent company, Tomson & Wooton, called their KKK a Stock Ale.

No surprises in the recipe. Which has just a single type of malt, described as “Scotch”. Interesting, given how far Kent, where the brewery was located, is from Scotland.

A single type of hops, too. East Kent from the 1893 harvest. Pretty fresh, given that this beer was brewed in January. The hopping rate is a little lower than in XXX. Which isn’t what I would have expected. Though the dry-hopping is heavier.

As I believe this was a Stock Ale, it’s logical that it would have been aged. Probably for at least twelve months.
 

1894 Cannon KKK
pale malt	14.50 lb	100.00%
Goldings 90 min	2.00 oz
Goldings 30 min	2.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1062
FG	1015.5
ABV	6.15
Apparent attenuation	75.00%
IBU	46
SRM	5
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	163º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	59º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

 

 

London called

And I answered. Well, I went there, at least. Along with Dolores, on our traditional December trip.

No blow by blow account this time. Just a few photos and observations.

Staring with the really important stuff. Most expensive pint? 7 quid forty for a pint of Landlord in the Marquis Cornwallis. Fuck me. That's as bad as Amsterdam. It was a pretty good pint, mind.

Most annoying? Two pubs where there were handpumps with their clips thew right way around, but none of the beers actually on. This happened at the Rocket on Euston Road and the Nags Head on Camden High Street.

I was struck by how much Landlord there is in London. Even our hotel stocked it. (At just 4.95 a pint and in surprisingly good condition.)  Which is good news, as it's a beer that's up to Dolores's high standards. She's quite fussy when it comes to beer. More so than me. Traditional cask Bitter is her thing. London Pride being her favourite. Though she's more than happy to drink Landlord. She wasn't as impressed with Shepherd Neame Masterbrew. Thin, in her opinion. She switched to cider.

Most of the cask was in decent condition. Other than a couple of pints in the Euston Flyer. Where both my ESB and Hophead were past their best. Though not vinegar.

All the pubs we visited seemed to have plenty of custom, even in the afternoon. We were in central London, though. Mostly in pretty touristy bits. I'm sure that it's not typical of the country as a whole. Or even all of London.

Everything seemed a good bit more expensive than last year. Which I suppose is to be expected.

And what of breakfasts? I hear you ask. A proper full English every morning. Fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes, toast, tea and orange juice. The perfect start to the day.

I got to eat a pie, too. With mushy peas.

To complete our seasonal bliss, we attended a one-man performance of A Christmas Carol in the Charles Dickens house. Very impressive. 

Fremlin beer output in October 1897

My trip to Maidstone provided me with so much material. As I'm sure you're starting to realise. Here's a reminder that it's useful to photograph pretty much anything you find in a brewing record. Even if it looks like a bookmark.

There’s a sheet of paper in the last page for October in the brewing log, listing all sorts of monthly totals. Including how much of each beer was brewed. This makes it clear how much of a Pale Ale brewery Fremlin was.

The two weakest Pale Ales, H and BB, accounted for over 50% of their output. And the eight Pale Ales and one IPA were 93% of production. The biggest seller of the other beers, Porter, amounted to only 3% of the beer Fremlin brewed. 

Most of the beers produced were blended at racking time. Not just with primings to condition the beer in the cask, but also a small quantity of vatted Stock Ale. I assume that this was to add some aged character. It’s interesting that even X, the Mild Ale, had some of this aged beer blended in.

The proportion of vatted beer added was between 1% and 2%. Over all beers, averaging 1.76%.

There could have been few breweries in the country where Pale Ale so dominated output. Even specialist brewers in Burton produced a higher proportion of other styles. I wonder why Fremlin ended up concentrating so much on Pale Ales?
 

Fremlin beer output in October 1897
	beer	primings	vat	Total	%
H	3,049.5	85.25	57	3,185.75	30.94%
BB	2,329	79.75	43	2,451.75	23.81%
BA C	1,325	46.25	36	1,407.25	13.67%
BA	655	20.25	8.5	683.75	6.64%
PA C	1,165.5	39.75	17	1,222.25	11.87%
IPA	43.5			43.5	0.42%
X	169.5	7	9	185.5	1.80%
P	301	-		301	2.92%
Cooper	73.5			73.5	0.71%
DS	83.5	3.25	19	105.75	1.03%
BB L	371.75	3		374.75	3.64%
BA L	73			73	0.71%
PA L	137.25			137.25	1.33%
Pilsener	46.5			46.5	0.45%
Victoria		5		5	0.05%
total	9,823.5	289.5	183.5	10,296.5
Source:
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/22.

 

 

Let[s Brew Wedenesday - 1885 W.E. & J. Rigden Special Ale

The recipe writing has been going well. I've now over 400 for "Free!", by upcoming book. If I can keep up this pace, I may have all the recipes polished off by the end of the year. 

Next up strength-wise of Rigden’s Bitters is the rather oddly-named Special Ale. Not sure what makes this “special”. It’s just a mid-strength Pale Ale.

There’s rather more malt in the grist, as there’s no flaked maize. Though there is a higher percentage of sugar than in AK. And that sugar leads to quite a dark colour for the finished beer. Not quite as dark as Mild Beer, but on the way there.

Two types of hops were used. Both English, though I only have details of one: Sussex from the 1884 harvest. The other is just another squiggle.

The very heavy rate of dry-hopping leads me to believe that this was probably a semi-stock beer. Aged for three months or so before sale. 

1885 W.E. & J. Rigden Special Ale
pale malt	8.00 lb	74.42%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.75 lb	25.58%
Fuggles 120 mins	2.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	2.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	2.25 oz
OG	1055
FG	1011.5
ABV	5.75
Apparent attenuation	79.09%
IBU	64
SRM	10.5
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	180º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	59º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

 

Fremlin beers in 1897

One of the larger breweries in Kent, Fremlin produced an impressive range of beers. Fourteen of them in all, mostly Pale Ales.

There were eight of them in total, plus an IPA. With gravities from 1040º to 1069º. Which is a pretty decent spread. Though, rather oddly, three different beers were 1048º. You can see why they described themselves as a Pale Ale brewery in their advertisements. 

Weakest of the set was the rather enigmatically named H. Which looks like some sort of Light Bitter. There’s a bit of a jump then to BB at 1048º. Which came in two variations, BB and BB L. The latter, presumably, being a version for the London market, which was significantly more heavily hopped.

Next was BA at 1052º. Which came in three variations. BA C (I’m guessing country) at the lower gravity of 1048º and looks very much like BB. And BA L (London) with a higher gravity of 1055º, along with heavier hopping.

Next, we come to PA at 1058º. Which also had a London variant at 1061º. And, finally, there’s IPA at 1069º, which is very much at the top end of strength for the style.

There’s just a single Mild Ale, X, with a fairly typical gravity of 1051º. Which mainly differs from the Pale Ales in having a lower hopping rate of just over 6 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt. Compared to 7.5 to 10 lbs for the Pale Ales.

A whole three Black Beers were produced: Porter, Cooper and Double Stout. It’s odd to see Cooper being brewed. It was usually just a blend of Porter and Stout. It’s particularly odd, given it’s only 1º higher in gravity than the Porter.

We now come to the oddest beer of the bunch: Pilsener. In the 1890s, Lager was usually only brewed by specialists, with a special brewhouse dedicated to it. Fremlin was well ahead of the game and had already started brewing their Pilsener in the 1880s. 

Fremlin beers in 1897
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1051	1014.4	4.84	71.76%	6.32	1.45
H	Pale Ale	1040	1006.6	4.41	83.38%	7.57	1.26
BA	Pale Ale	1052	1013.3	5.12	74.43%	7.75	1.69
BA C	Pale Ale	1048	1009.4	5.10	80.38%	7.37	1.51
BA L	Pale Ale	1055	1015.5	5.22	71.80%	10.00	2.47
BB	Pale Ale	1048	1010.8	4.92	77.49%	7.26	1.52
BB L	Pale Ale	1048	1010.5	4.96	78.07%	9.33	2.09
PA	Pale Ale	1058	1015.5	5.62	73.26%	7.89	1.97
PA L	Pale Ale	1061	1016.9	5.83	72.30%	9.89	2.73
IPA	IPA	1069	1018.3	6.71	73.50%	8.00	3.49
Pilsener	Pilsener	1047				6.00	1.30
P	Porter	1052	1015.0	4.90	71.23%	6.45	1.37
Cooper	Porter	1053	1017.7	4.67	66.55%	5.41	1.36
DS	Stout	1071	1017.7	7.05	75.03%	7.48	2.76
Source:
Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/22.

 

 

J. C. Jacobsen talking barley and holidays

Even more from J. C. Jacobsen's letter of 14th April 1869.

He's now writing about Scottish barley.

This is the barley that he asked his son to send from Scotland.

I have received today a letter with a bill of lading from Matthew & Theilmann for 40 quarters of barley, which have arrived and will hopefully be loaded tomorrow.- Before I close this letter tomorrow afternoon, I will tell you what I think of the barley. It will be hammered into shape the day after tomorrow and will be malted as slowly as possible with all care and then hidden away in one of the small chambers until the autumn I will not know the price until the next letter. 

From later on in the letter, here's what he thought of the Scottish barley.

At this moment the first load of Scottish barley arrived, weighing 118 # [pound sign] Dutch, equivalent to 12 L.. 5 #[pound sign] Danish per Tdr, which is a good weight. The color is not as light as on your sample No1, but I do not attach any further importance to it, as the quality is extremely good.

He seemed pretty impressed with it. Though UK malting barley was generally considered pretty high quality.

There follows some personal stuff. Which seems to relate to a planned visit of Jacobsen senior amd his wife to the UK.

Now we could probably expect your friend Halkjer to come home soon. You have asked him to visit us, haven't you? Is he going home to Copenhagen right now? Will Stegmann come here before June? In that case, ask him to visit us. He naturally knows nothing about the planned trip? - Your mother has at the same time talked about visiting Jutland in the summer; yes, she even mentioned yesterday that she wanted to visit Hanne Gade in Christiania. Fortunately, she knows nothing and will not know anything until 14 days before I see that I can get ready. I should perhaps not talk about it until 8 days before the trip, as we could easily be ready to travel by that time. But I am afraid that it will inadvertently slip out of me prematurely, as I have difficulty in keeping it hidden from everyone who daily occupies my thoughts more and more. 

Clearly, Jacobsen senior was keeping the trip as a surprise for his wife. Which is quite sweet.

I would like to brush up on my English a little, but I have not been able to get much time for it yet, as I do not want to interrupt my French exercises and in any case have to run the English ones in secret. But it will go well and I trust that you can at least be my interpreter. When you have practice conversing with prima donnas, you must by all means become proficient in the language! How is your stammering in England? Miss Pfeil replied the other day, when your mother asked her about it, that there was some stammering in your pronunciation last year when you visited her in Paris. I have had much pleasure in her development. She has displayed an uncommon talent as a dramatic artist, both in "The Jewess" and now recently in "The Huguenots," and she has a, by our standards, magnificent voice with a pleasant sound and great mastery over its expressive use. She has also won much recognition from the public, although her pronunciation of the consonants still leaves much to be desired, but she has a serious will to correct the deficiencies. 

Who was Miss Pfeil? She seems to have been an actress of some sort. What was her connection with the Jacobsens? I wonder how bad Jacobsen junior's stammering was?

 

J. C. Jacobsen talking mashing

More from J. C. Jacobsen's letter of 14th April 1869.

Jacobsen senior was keen on finding out more about mashing in the UK and the composition of the worts it generated.

Kogsbølle, as often as he has time to spare, is busy with analyses of the ratio between sugar and gum in the wort. I would be very happy to carry out these analyses with wort of Scotch ale and Burton ale, in order to learn the result of the English mashing and malting in this respect. I suppose that the wort had to be allowed to come here with a suitable addition of alcohol to prevent spoilage along the way, but I will have to discuss that with Kogsbølle. Have I asked you whether you have tried the first wort that runs in the Younger kettle with iodine? Since the temperature is so low during the mashing, one might imagine that there was some unaltered starch in the wort at the beginning.

Kogsbølle, I assume, worked at Carlsberg. I guess you'd have to add quite a bit of alcohol to wort to preserve long enough to get from Edinburgh to Copenhagen. Otherwise, it would inevitably start to ferment, either with yeast or something else. Would it still be possible to analyse the wort ignoring the alcohol? Would the alcohol change the wort at all?

I find the comments about a low mashing temperature at William Younger a bit strange. The temperatures look totally normal to me. Looking at brews from August 1868, these are the temperatures.

Strike heat: 170º F
1st falling heat: 150º F
1st sparge: 190º F
2nd sparge: 185º F
2nd falling heat: 156º F
3rd falling heat: 166º F

The first falling heat is the temperature of the wort after mashing and standing for two hours. Meaning that the initial mashing heat was higher than 150º. Which seems totally normal to me. And I'm sure sufficiently high to convert all the starch after two hours. What sort of mashing temperature was Jacobsen senior expecting.

Let's take a look at what Jacobsen junior did when he returned to Copenhagen and had his own brewery. This was a brew in 1871.

Strike heat: 70º C (158º F)
1st sparge: 80º C (176º F)

That doesn't look any hotter than the mashing at Younger.

Not quite sure what he means here.

It is strange that in England so little or no importance is attached to letting the hop wort stand on the trays and clear itself, for although you get a complete clarification of the hot wort in the hop vat, you still get a not inconsiderable sediment when it cools, which the English run into the fermentation vat. - I do not like this.

By "tray" does he mean cooler? Because I thought that this is exactly why UK breweries kept their coolers even after installing baudelot coolers. On account of the "cooler sludge" that fell out. 
 

Let's Brew - 1893 Cannon X

Like some other brewers in Kent, Cannon only brewed one Mild Ale. In this case, with the logical designation X.

This beer is a great demonstration of how much the timing of Mild becoming darker varied. At the nearby W.E. & J. Rigden brewery Mild was already semi-dark in 1884. Here, Mild is still pale a decade later.

There really is nothing to the grist. Well, as near to nothing as you can get. A single type of pale malt. Leaving a pretty pale colour.

The rate of attenuation isn’t great. It must have had a fairly full body with that finishing gravity of 1016º. Which I assume was deliberate. As it was pretty much exactly the same for every batch of X.

Equal amounts of two types of hops, Californian and East Kent, both from the 1891 harvest.

To complicate matters, six barrels of KK were mixed with the 50 barrels of X at racking time. 

1893 Cannon X
pale malt	11.50 lb	100.00%
Cluster 90 min	1.25 oz
Goldings 30 min	1.25 oz
OG	1050
FG	1016
ABV	4.50
Apparent attenuation	68.00%
IBU	38
SRM	4.5
Mash at	153º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

 

Cannon (Ramsgate) ingredients in 1893-1894

Time to look at the grists. This bit is going to be easy. As all of Cannon’s beers only contained base malt. Usually, this was pale malt. Though sometimes AK had 50% pale malt and 50% mild malt.

The hops are slightly more complicated. Though not that much. 

The two cheapest beers, T and X, used a combination of East Kent and Californian hops, Both from the 1891 harvest. That is, a couple of years old. The use of older hops isn’t particularly unusual. Neither of these beers were dry-hopped.

The more expensive XXX and KKK only had a single type of copper hop. East Kent hops, in these cases from the most recent season. Again, pretty normal. Dry hops were fresh Worcesters.

Similar hopping was used in the two Pale Ales. Though, this time there were two types of copper hops: East Kent from 1892 and Worcester from 1893. The latter were also used as the dry hops. 

Cannon (Ramsgate) hops in 1893-1894
Beer	Style	hop 1	hop 2	dry hops
T	Table	EK 1891	Californian 1891
X	Mild	EK 1891	Californian 1891
XXX	Mild	EK 1892		Wor 1893
KKK	Old Ale	EK 1893		Wor 1893
AK 10d	Pale Ale	EK 1892	Wor 1893	Wor 1893
KK	Pale Ale	EK 1892	Wor 1893	Wor 1893
Source:
Cannon Brewery (Ramsgate) brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number R/U7/B6.

 

 

Cannon (Ramsgate) beers in 1893-1894

Looking at the range of the Cannon Brewery, it seems quite odd. Because there’s no Porter or Stout. There is an explanation. In 1878, Cannon was taken over by Tomson & Wooton. Who did brew a Porter. I assume they just provided whatever Black Beer Cannon required.

Other than that, Cannon’s range of six beers looks reasonably complete. A table Beer, two Mild Ales, two Pale Ales and an Old Ale. At least, that’s what I think KKK was. Not totally sure about that.

Just like at their parent company, the gravity range was pretty narrow: 1048º to 1062º. (Thar’s ignoring the tiny quantities of Table.) 

The Milds might look impressively strong by modern standards. But they were weedy compared to those brewed in London. In 1884, Whitbread X was 1062º, stronger than Cannon XXX.  Though London beers did tend to be stronger than those brewed elsewhere in the UK.

The hopping rate of X is also lower than in London. Where Whitbread X received 8 to 9 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt.  XXX, however, is at about that level.

KKK is the strongest beer of the set. But, at 1062º, not particularly strong for the day. Oddly, its hopping rate was lower than for XXX. Which isn’t what you would expect. It was the most heavily dry-hopped of their beers, though.

The AK is a little on the weak side for the style: they were usually 1045º to 1050º. But, as the name indicates, it was sold cheaply. Just 10d per gallon. Whereas the usual price was 12d per gallon.

KK is the most heavily hopped beer. Which makes sense as it’s the strongest Pale Ale. It doesn’t look quite strong enough or heavily hopped enough to be a Stock Pale Ale. My guess would be that it’s semi-stock. 

Cannon (Ramsgate) beers in 1893-1894
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	dry hops (oz / barrel)
T	Table	1026.6				6.00	0.64	0.00
X	Mild	1048.4	1009.4	5.16	80.54%	6.00	1.10	0.00
XXX	Mild	1060.6	1013.9	6.19	77.16%	8.94	2.17	2.00
KKK	Old Ale	1062.1	1015.5	6.16	75.02%	8.00	1.94	4.00
AK 10d	Pale Ale	1042.7	1013.3	3.89	68.87%	7.00	1.23	2.00
KK	Pale Ale	1058.9	1008.3	6.70	85.90%	10.00	2.35	2.00
Source:
Cannon Brewery (Ramsgate) brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number R/U7/B6.

 

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1893 Cannon XXX

The Cannon brewery of Maidstone, in case you're wondering. One of the breweries whose records I snapped on my recent trip to, er, Maidstone. 

 Unlike many other rivals in Kent, Cannon brewed multiple Milds. Though they slipped XX and jumped straight to XXX.

The difference in gravity – 11º - probably justifies that jump. While a decent level of attenuation leaves it well over 6% ABV. Mild, indeed.

Quite a boring grist as it’s all malt. Just base malt. Though there were two types. Described as “Queen St,” and “Cannon:”, presumably referring to the maltster.

Only a single type of hops: East Kent from the 1892 harvest. Reasonably fresh and relatively expensive. Of a notably higher quality than those in X.

Would have been drunk within a few weeks of racking. I think. Unless this was an Old Ale. It is quite heavily hopped.

1893 Cannon XXX
pale malt	14.25 lb	100.00%
Goldings 90 min	2.25 oz
Goldings 30 min	2.25 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1061
FG	1014
ABV	6.22
Apparent attenuation	77.05%
IBU	52
SRM	5
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	162º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale