Single, Double and Tripel

I bet this post isn't about what you expected. Not Belgian, but British, beer is the topic. Let me explain.

On Saturday a nice man from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling dropped by. With the books and technical magazines I'd successfully bidden for at one of their periodic auctions. It was very good of him to deliver them. They weighed a ton and would have cost a fortune to post.

British brewing magazines are frustratingly difficult to get hold of. Bound copies never appear on AbeBooks or the like. Lucky me. I now own a random selection of Brewing Trade Review, Brewers' Journal and Monthly Beer Digest. Spread over the years 1938-1990. But lots from the 1930's and 1940's. They'll come in dead handy for The Book.

I've already had one rejection for The Book, or BAML as I affectionately call it. Not bad going, for a book that's half finished at most.

These old trade magazines are great sources. For legislation, statistics, new equipment. That sort of stuff. I daren't open "Zeitschrift für das gesammte Brauwesen" for fear of being sidetracked for months. So many lovely statistics.

The British ones are a different matter. They are relevant to my current work. Writing the 20th-century chapters of BAML. I can browse with a clear conscience. Here's the first thing I found.

'In 1552 the regulaions that had been in existence for about 300 years, prescribing three sorts od ale ("X", "XX" and "XXX") were replaced in the City of London by a ruling that two kinds only were to be allowed. "doble" and "syngyll". And here we have for the very first time the definitive evidence as to the quality of commercial brews. "Of every quarter of grain that any beer brewer shall brew of double beer, " the authorities stated, "he shall draw four barrels and one firkin of good drynke for the mannes body."'
"Brewing Trade Review" November 1948, page 680.

Great. They've given us the quantity of grain and the brew length. We can make a reasonable guess at the double beer's strength. 1 quarter of grain. In the 19th century, brewers got 85-90 brewers pounds (I'll explain this later) from a quarter of malt. That was pale malt. The darker the malt, the worse the yield. Brown malt, in the 1800's, when it was pretty roasted, yielded 56 or so. Earlier versions probably had a better yield. Not as roasted = more weight per quarter, apparently better yield.

Let's give the Elizabethan brewers a yield of 60 brewers pounds per quarter. Wait a second. 60 divided by four and a quarter. That's 14.12 brewers pounds gravity. Multiply that by 2.77 and add 1000 and you have specific gravity. 1039.11, I make the OG. Pretty low. Bumping the yield up to 70 pounds per quarter, I get 16.47 pounds per barrel, OG 1045.62. The reality was almost certainly somewhere between those two examples. Modest compared to the early 18th century. Even a pale malt type of yield of 80 pounds per quarter would produce a beer of just 18.82 pounds per barrel, OG 1052.14.

You have to allow a bit for error as, a gallon of beer wasn't the same volume as it is today. The current imperial gallon is what used to be the wine gallon. They standardised in the 1820's. Or somewhere around then. I can't be arsed to look it up now. And the number of gallons per barrel changed several times. Between 32 and 36 gallons per barrel. There's not room to be more precise here. The gravities I've calculated are a rough estimate.

How's that for equivocation? Fourish percent ABV. That's a sort of cricket oval figure for Double Beer. About like modern British Bitter. Plus ca change, eh? (My boss has just threatened me with having to teach in French. Need to practice the Franglais, vieux fils.)