Thursday 18 March 2010

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1928 Barclay Perkins KK (bottling)

Just a day late this week. But I think you'll find that today's recipe was worth the wait. An interwar K Ale from Barclay Perkins. Just what I fancy drinking now, if I'm honest.

For those of you who've arrived half-way through this blog, I'll explain a little about K Ales. Old hands can skip to the next paragraph. In the 19tth century London brewers had two parallel lines of Ales (not including Pale ale - that's a totally different beast). One set of Ales (X Ales) were sold mild or young. The other set (K Ales) were Keeping (or Stock) Ales, aged before being sold. Initially there were four grades of X Ales, called X, XX, XXX and XXXX, in ascending order of strength. There were only three grades of K Ale, KK, KKK and KKKK. XX had the same gravity as KK, XXX the same as KKK and XXXX the same as KKKK. As the century progressed, the stronger X Ales faded away and by WW I few breweries had more than an X and XX. The name Stock Ale started to fall into disuse around 1900 and K Ales to be known instead as Strong Ales.

Now on with the new stuff. In the 1920's, Barclay Perkins brewed a variety of Strong Ales. There was draught KK, known to drinkers as Burton. KKK a stronger draught beer. KKKK Winter Brew or Old Burton, a strong seasonal draught beer. And finally the beer we're looking at today, KK bottling sold as No.1 Southwarke Ale, known as Old Ale to drinkers. (As you can see from above, I actually have the right label this time.)

K Ales, as beers, were somewhere between a strong Mild and a Bitter. Dark, but quite heavily hopped. It's hard to think of a modern British beer that's really much like them. Almost forgot the dry-hopping. They were quite heavily dry-hopped, too.



That's me done again. Time for Kristen . . . .




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Barclay Perkins - 1928 - KK ale
General info: Burton ale…big, brown and bitter as hell. The Burton ales of yesteryear rarely resemble the Burton ales of today. These beers were very dark with huge gravities and even bigger hopping schedules. The amount of non-malt adjuncts was quite high with this beer having around 20% of such ingredients. The hops were fresh and added in huge amounts throughout the beer. A very substantial beer with the vast ability to age.
Beer Specifics

Recipe by percentages
Gravity (OG)
1.070

33.2% English pale malt
4.7% Crystal 75L
Gravity (FG)
1.016

19.4% American 6-row
14.7% Invert No2 sugar
ABV
7.25%

18.7% Mild malt
1% Caramel Colorant
Apparent attenuation
77.27%

8.3% Flaked maize

Real attenuation
63.30%







IBU
66.2

Mash
120min@154°F
1.03qt/lb

SRM
42


120min@67.8°C
2.15L/kg

EBC
83.0










Boil
2.5hours













Homebrew @ 70%
Craft @ 80%
Grist
5gal
19L
10bbl
10hl
English pale malt
4.48
lb
2.038
kg
242.80
lb
93.81
kg
American 6-row
2.61
lb
1.189
kg
141.63
lb
54.72
kg
Mild malt
2.52
lb
1.146
kg
136.57
lb
52.77
kg
Flaked maize
1.12
lb
0.509
kg
60.70
lb
23.45
kg
Crystal 75L
0.64
lb
0.291
kg
34.69
lb
13.40
kg
Invert No2 sugar
1.99
lb
0.906
kg
107.91
lb
41.69
kg
Caramel Colorant
2.24
oz
64.0
g
7.59
lb
2.93
kg

13.351

6.078

731.88423



Hops








Goldings 4.5% 150min
1.48
oz
42.0
g
91.85
oz
2.219
kg
Goldings 4.5% 90min
1.48
oz
42.0
g
91.85
oz
2.219
kg
Goldings 4.5% 30min
1.48
oz
42.0
g
91.85
oz
2.219
kg
Goldings 4.5% dry hop
1.38
oz
39.0
g
85.33
oz
2.062
kg









Fermentation
73°F /22.8°C















Yeast
Nottingham ale yeast

1028 London Ale Yeast  - WLP013 London Ale Yeast 









Tasting Notes: Toasted malt and biscuits…lots and lots of biscuits. Some grain husk with a ton of dark fruits…cherries and plums. Absolutely NO roast. Endive and hay. Orangey hops and lots of spice. Although higher in FG than some beers of this gravity, it finishes quite dry tasting b/c of the tannins and hop bitterness.

Ingredients and technique
Grist & such
Lots of things going into this relatively simple concept of a Burton ale. Three pale malts, some crystal and maize and then a really good portion of Invert No2 sugar. The 15% No2 will really lend the most character of all ingredients. There is no roast flavors or aromas so the color comes from a large amount of caramel colorant. 1% of the entire grist is quite a lot for any beer. If you want to drop it, as always, feel free. However the first time you make it its good to do it as the original.

Hops
The hops were all relatively fresh, the oldest being 2 seasons old. All were from exactly the same producer and all were Kentish, middle kent to be specific. Unlike most of BP’s beers these were added at three different times in the copper. At make up, at 90 minutes and then at 30 minutes. There was no aroma addition which didn’t matter as this beer was dry hopped at a rate of 0.5lb/ bbl.

Mash & Boil
A simple single infusion along with a single underlet left the average for this mash on the higher end. BP did this a lot for the majority of their beers. Not getting fancy very often. The boil was quite long at 2.5 hours and 2 hours for the second gyle.

Fermentation, Conditioning & Serving
Fermentation was done at a quite a high temperature for such a large beer which would have lent a definitely spicy/hot/ alcohol character to the beer. The beer finished in 145 hours and was then conditioned for about 3 weeks. The CO2 should be around 2.2 volumes allowing the hops to show off and keep the end from being to flabby.

Gyling & Blending
A simple 2 gyle, partigyle. The vast majority of the hops went into the first gyle (75%). The sugars were split between the first and second. This is one beer, with the way its gyled and the type of beer that is very well suited for a gyle. If you want to drop the gyle you’ll need more hops to get the same BU count b/c  of the gravity of the beer.

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KK
5gal
19L
10bbl
10hL
G1 - vol
2.34
8.90
4.69
4.69
G1 - grav
1.081
1.081
1.081
1.081
G1 - BU
102
102
102
102
G2 - vol
2.66
10.10
5.31
5.31
G2 - grav
1.060
1.060
1.060
1.060
G2 - BU
31
31
31
31
G3 - vol
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
G3 - grav
1.000
1.000
1.000
1.000
G3 - BU
0
0
0
0
Hopping
0.3oz/gal
2.26g/L
0.59lb/bbl
0.23kg/hL
Totals
OG 1.07
FG 1.016
BU 64.6
Abv 7.1%

11 comments:

Adrian Avgerinos said...

I know the notion of a "Black IPA" is downright blasphemous to some, but I have to wonder if, at least in taste, a Burton Ale like this one is similar if not the same thing.

Last night I opened up my last bottle of Stone's 11th Anniversary Ale (2007) and it was divine. Bittersweet and creamy with a distinct rum raisin sweetness in the nose. And pitch black with almost no roast flavor.

This question is for Kristen: Can Sinimar be used in place of caramel colorant or will that throw off the flavor profile? What about using Carafa Special in the mash?

Here are Stone's notes for XI:

Stone 11th Anniversary Ale Recipe

Grain Bill:

90% pale malt

5% 60°L Crystal

5% Weyermann Carafa III Special


OG target is 20.5°P (1.082 SG) Terminal Gravity target is 4°P (1.016 SG)


Hops:

Bittering at start of boil: 100% Chinook

Flavor hops added at end of boil or whirlpool: 50/50 blend of Simcoe and Amarillo

Target 120 IBU’s.

Ferment with good ale yeast. We used our house yeast.

Dry-Hop with 50/50 blend of Simcoe and Amarillo, use LOTS! (we used 1 ½ pounds per barrel).

Good luck and enjoy. Post up if you brew it, let us know how it is.

Anonymous said...

What interests me about these beers is what the use of brewing sugars is meant to replicate from the original (ie brewed at Burton) Burton Ales, both the early 19th century and the 18th century (exported to Russia) kinds. What was it, if anything, about the taste/character of Burton Ale that Barclay Perkins and other London brewers could only get by using brewing sugars, sugars which the Burton brewers, at least originally (ie before the 1840s) wouldn't have been able to use?

Ron Pattinson said...

Zythophile, the London brewers just used sugar in everything. That's just how they brewed. Quite probably it was a reaction to what the public wanted, that is beers that weren't too "heavy".

Kristen England said...

Adrian,

Re sinemar...yes, kinda. Its actually quite easy to find caramel (burnt sugar) colorant. Most Asian grocers have it.

A 12oz bottle costs around $2.50. This one here is very good and cheap.

http://sams247.net/p10/BLUE-MOUNTAIN-BURNT-SUGAR-12-OZ./product_info.html?ref=3&affiliate_banner_id=1

Graham Wheeler said...

zythophile said...
What interests me about these beers is what the use of brewing sugars is meant to replicate from the original

To be gentle to B.P., in the paler beers, the sugar was probably to reduce the haze potential of the imported barley. It was probably an economy measure too. You will observe that the quantity of sugar used in most recipes roughly matches the quantity of imported barley. It does not have much significance in dark beers though.

The whole concept of using such poor quality imported barley was based upon a diastatic power myth, which emerged soon after they were first able to measure diastatic power. It was generally balanced with an equal amount of sugar in the paler beers.

High nitrogen barley does have a high diastatic power, but the consequence of that is a high haze potential. Nitrogen / protein is responsible for both. They were, in fact, throwing out the baby with the bath water, and when they realised this the concept was pooh-poohed, probably before the time of this recipe.

Of course, if the imported malt was much cheaper than indigenous malt, then there is a reason for its continued use.

When I visited the Gales Brewery for a day, about 1982, and "assisted" in putting a brew through, they were still adding diastatic malt extract to their mash based upon the myth that ordinary malt did not have the power to self-convert leave alone convert any adjuncts. It has plenty of such power, but it shows how long these practices can survive.

I have often pondered why Barclay Perkins got up to strange practices at times. For example, they always used caramel, whether the beer needed it or not; they always use sugar, whether the beer could withstand it or not, sometimes some of the ingredients are pointless; they added hops at odd times and they very often performed some unusual "marrying" at the end. Much of their procedure was well behind the state of the art for the day.

I have come to the conclusion that there must have been the Barclay Perkins Way. Every beer used the same standard modus operandi or crib sheet. Then you have to ask why the brewers did not think outside of the box. It is not that the science was not available to them, or the experience of other brewers.

Where did they get their brewers from? Did they bring them in from outside? Did they send them to university? Or did they come up through what we would call the apprenticeship system?

It seems that the last of those options is most likely. If their brewers came up through the apprenticeship system, they would only know the Barclay Perkins Way. The following apprentices would also be taught the B.P. Way, and so on. It could go on for generations. It could be that the guvnors were such tyrants that they were not allowed to change anything on fear of death, or worse. By the 1930s it would seem that they were desperately in need of the appliance of a bit of science.

The Whitbread grists were better and more sensible judging from what I have seen of them, don't know about their brewing practices though. I would expect Whitbread to have been at the forefront of science appliance though, once they'd bought themselves a microscope of course.

StuartP said...

With all this sugar and caramel being thrown into historical brews, they are starting to look like the homebrew recipes from dear old David Line rather than more modern guides such as Mr Wheeler.
So the wheel turns full circle and we're back where we started.
I'm coming to the conclusion that there's nothing new in the brewing world - now I'm sure that's never been said before.

Ron Pattinson said...

Graham, there's actually considerable variation between the different Barclay Perkins beers, both in terms of ingredients and brewing methods. And they certainly weren't alone in throwing sugar in everything.

Whitbread grists aren't that different: always some foreign 6-row, always sugar. The only real difference is that they didn't use maize or other adjuncts.

As for the caramel being pointless, I have to disagree. They had very specific target colour values for all their beers and the caramel was used to hit them. If you look closely at the Imperial Stout log that includes carmel, you'll see that it was actually used not in the Stout, but in the Porter being party-gyled with it.

Oblivious said...

"It seems that the last of those options is most likely. If their brewers came up through the apprenticeship system, they would only know the Barclay Perkins Way."

Its what Rochefort did with the new ish brewer Gumer santos

Graham Wheeler said...

StuartP,
Caramel was, and still is, used for colour adjustment in commercial beers, but it was much worse in Dave Line's day. In my books I carefully selected the recipes so that only those that I regarded as quality grists were included. Any that used caramel to change one beer to look like another type of beer, or used large amounts of caramel, was excluded, although this isn't as common as it was twenty or thirty years ago. The quality of British beer has increased substantially since the brewers have found themselves under competition.

You will observe in some of the pale recipes that I include tiny amounts of chocolate or black malt, 50 grammes or thereabouts. This is to adjust the colour to that specified by the brewery.

Indeed, since Europe made some types of caramel illegal, and restricted the others in the amounts that can be used, many brewers have switched to using concentrated, black malt extract for colour adjustment. So we have, in a way, gone full circle back to 1817.

Paul! said...

My apologies if I'm the billionth person to ask, but I can't seem to figure out how to make no.2 brewing sugar? Ive' searched the blog and have a good handle on inverting sugar as well as making the ubiquitous no.3, yet am stumped on the no.2?
I love the blog and would like to make this beer EXACTLY as it was brewed originally. Any help would be great.

Graham Wheeler said...

Paul! said...

My apologies if I'm the billionth person to ask, but I can't seem to figure out how to make no.2 brewing sugar? Ive' searched the blog and have a good handle on inverting sugar as well as making the ubiquitous no.3, yet am stumped on the no.2?

If you can make No.3, you can make No.2 It is just half the colour. Brewer's invert is inverted cane sugar plus about 5% cane molasses (for flavour), caramelised to the specified colour (65EBC for No2.) Invert sugar caramelises at a much lower temperature (110°C) than sucrose (or at least the fructose component of it does).

The problem with making your own is getting the colour right without the proper measuring equipment.

Quite frankly, the 1% caramel is hell of a lot of caramel and it will overwhelm the colour contribution of No.2 invert.

we have no real idea of the colour of the caramel that they used, but typically it would be 33,000 EBC today.

64 grams of 33,000 caramel is going to add something like 111 EBC to 19 litres of beer. That is darker than the quoted EBC for the recipe.

If you are going to add caramel, and you are concerned about the flavour contribution of No.2 invert, it would be easier to use a dark cane sugar that has a high molasses content, such as Demerara or Muscovado, and ignore the colour contribution.

A potential problem with caramelised colourants is producing a stable colourant. That is, one that stays in solution and does not settle out over time. All to do with ionic charges and all that jazz. There is no guarantee that culinary caramels will be stable in beer, or home made colourants for that matter.