Malt 1920-1939

We're back to malt again. I've started taking a proper look at "Brewing Science & Practice" by H. Lloyd Hind, published in 1943. It's packed with fun stuff.

I'd been wondering about the appearance of MA, mild ale malt, in brewing logs. Where you would expect to see pale malt. And also PA, or pale ale malt. Thankfully Hind is helping to straighten out my confusion.



Pale Ale Malt
Pale malt had split into a couple of subtypes. The best-quality, palest in colour and most expensive was pale ale malt. It was usually made from British-grown, 2-row barley. Their low permanently soluble nitrogen content made them most suitable to all-malt beers, or those with only a small quantity of sugar in the grist. A low-gravity beer with a high percentage of adjuncts made from such malt would have lacked yeast nutrients. The light colour meant they were perfect for high-gravity Pale Ales. (Source: "Brewing Science & Practice" H. Lloyd Hind, 1943, pages 254-255.)

In practice, British pale ale malt was usually used in combination with pale malt made from foreign-grown, 6-row barley and sugar. Typically, the better-quality the beer, the higher the proportion of malt from 2-row barley. Here are a couple of examples of Whitbread grists:

Whitbread 1933 PA
Dereham California__31,83%
Dereham PA No.2 ___47,74%
Crysatal malt______3,77%
Garton No. 1______16,66%

Whitbread 1933 IPA
Dereham California__29,28%
Dereham Slovakian__15,62%
Taylor PA No.2 ____17,57%
Earp PA No.2______16,59%
Crystal __________ 4,85%
Martineau No. 1_____16,09%
Source:
Whitbread brewing records.


Mild Ale Malt
This was also made from British 2-row barley and differed from pale ale malt mostly in it colour. Whereas pale ale malt was 4-5º (Lovibond, 1 inch cell), mild ale malt was 6-7º. It was slightly less well-modified that pale ale malt and was sometimes made from slightly lower-quality barley. (Source: "Brewing Science & Practice" H. Lloyd Hind, 1943, page 256.)

It was a good bit cheaper than PA malt (see table below for exact figures) and around the same price as pale malt made from American 6-row barley.

Not all breweries used it in their Milds and it was used in beer other than Mild. Whitbread sometimes used older and lower quality pale ale malt in their Milds instead of mild ale malt. Barclay Perkins used it in all their Milds, most of their Stouts and some of their stronger ales, such as KK. Here's and example:

Barclay Perkins 1935 KK (trade), XX, X, A
Amber____________7,19%
crystal ____________4,20%
Dereham Californian __19,10%
Gilstrap MA________14,01%
Dereham MA new____22,92%
Dereham MA________7,64%
Maize_____________13,19%
sugar______________11,75%
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing records.

In Barclay Perkins Stouts, mild ale malt usually made up all of the pale malt used.

Here's an anlaysis of some pale ale and mild ale malts from the 1930's: