Saturday 31 October 2009

1909 Beer Style Guide - X Ale

Time for a sneak preview of mine and Kristen's 1909 Beer Style Guide.

This is part of a sample chapter. In addition to the text here, the book version will include a recipe or two. Your comments are welcome.



X Ale

X Ale, or standard Mild Ale, was the most popular type of beer. It formed over 50% of output, even of some of the large London Porter breweries like Whitbread and Truman.

Amongst the London brewers there was a trend to brew a much reduced range of X and K Ales. XX and XXX were dropped. Mostly just the weakest remained, X. The stronger slots were left to Stock Ales, KK and KKK. Increasingly, the Stock Ales were referred to as Strong Ales and X Ales as Mild Ales. This relationship would last little changed until the 1950's.

For example, in 1881, Whitbread brewed X, XL and XX. By 1910, only X remained. The gravity of X was starting to move downwards, too. Whitbread's was 1061º in 1881, but was down to 1057º in 1910. Much worse was to happen after 1914, when Mild Ales bore the brunt of gravity cuts.

X Ales had pretty simple recipes: pale malt and sugar. Though some brewers had taken advantage of the 1880 Free Mash Tun Act to use adjuncts like maize or rice. No modern Mild bears much resemblance to such Ales. Colour mostly came from dark No.3 invert sugar or caramel. Sometimes small amounts of amber or black malt were used, but this was more the exception than the rule.

What differentiated Mild from Pale Ale wasn't colour or gravity, but a lower hopping rate and higher FG which made them maltier, sweeter and fuller-bodied.

X Ales were hopped at a rate of 7 to 8 pounds per quarter in the 1880's, falling to 5 to 6 pounds per barrel by 1910. PA and IPA were hopped at about double that rate.

Surprisingly, Bitters like PA and IPA generally had a lower percentage of malt in the grist than X Ales. Whitbread's X had 10% sugar in the grist, their PA and IPA 20%. This, too, must have helped Mild Ales to taste more full-bodied than the Bitters.


X
OG:
1050 – 1057º
FG:
1009 - 1018 º
ABV:
5 – 6%
Apparent attenuation:
70 – 85%
EBC:
40 - 90
lbs hops per barrel
1 – 1.5
IBU:

Grist:
English 2-row pale malt, foreign 6-row pale malt, English mild malt, crystal malt, amber malt, black malt, No.3 invert sugar, caramel, maize
Hops:
Mid Kent, East Kent, Worcester, Oregon, California.


Noakes 1915 X
Malt
Californian pale malt 11%
English 2-row pale malt 57%
black malt 0.5%
crystal malt 5%
No.3 invert sugar 25%
CDM sugar 1%
Hops 100%
Californian hops 50%
Oregon hops 50%


Fuller's 1910 X
Malt
Californian 6-row pale malt 18%
Australian pale malt 17%
English 2-row pale malt 36%
No.1 invert sugar 9%
No.3 invert sugar 10%
luscious priming sugar 4%
caramel 0.64%
flaked maize 6%
Hops
East Kent hops 45%
Mid Kent hops 45%
Oregon yearling hops 10%


Barclay Perkins 1906 X
Malt
Californian 6-row pale malt 25%
English 2-row pale malt 54%
No.3 invert sugar 10%
maize 11%
caramel 0.10%
Hops
Worcester hops 33%
American hops 33%
Mid Kent yearling hops 33%



Barclay Perkins 1914 X
Malt
Indiian 6-row pale malt 10%
English 2-row mild malt 14%
English 2-row pale malt 39%
amber malt 7%
No.3 invert sugar 20%
maize 10%
caramel 0.12%
Hops
Mid Kent hops 33%
East Kent hops 33%
Mid Kent yearling hops 33%


Whitbread 1914 X
foreign 6- row pale malt 32%
English 2-row pale malt 61%
No.3 invert sugar 7%
Pacific hops 22%
Mid Kent hops 78%


Fuller's 1910 X
Malt
Californian 6-row pale malt 18%
Australian pale malt 17%
English 2-row pale malt 36%
No.1 invert sugar 9%
No.3 invert sugar 10%
luscious priming sugar 4%
caramel 0.64%
flaked maize 6%
Hops
East Kent hops 45%
Mid Kent hops 45%
Oregon yearling hops 10%

2 comments:

Bill in Oregon said...

If this is a preview, I'll be buying it when it comes out. This is incredibly interesting info. Thanks again for taking the time to share all of this.

Ron Pattinson said...

Bill, yes, this is a preview of the 1909 Beer Style Guide. Though it's still a little rough around the edges.