Thursday 21 October 2010

Courage Porter 1914 - 1918

Part two of Courage's beers during WW II. This time the beer in focus is Porter.

First a bit of background. In 1914, Courage always parti-gyled Porter and Double Stout. Often a bit of Imperial Stout was brewed, too. Porter was very much the senior partner, with less than half the amount of Double Stout produced in each brew.

Then early in 1918 Porter was discontinued. Stout was still brewed, but at a gravity so low, 1035, that it was considerably weaker than pre-war Porter. When Porter did make a comeback in 1920, it was a shadow of its former sself with a gravity just a shade under 1030. Now it was Stout than made up the greatest volume of the parti-gyles. And often Stout was just brewed by itself. Which means that the volume of Porter brewed was far less than before the war, though the total amount of Porter and Stout brewed remained much the same.

There was a similar process at Whitbread. So what had happened? Well, it looks as if many drinkers swapped from Porter to Stout. Or rather, that when Porter wasn't available, drinkers turned to Stout. And when an enfeebled version of Porter did reappear, many stuck with Stout. Which makes sense, as what was sold as Stout in the 1920's was much like 1914 Porter in terms of strength.

Now the table:


Courage Porter 1914 - 1918
Date
Year
Beer
Style
OG
FG
ABV
App. Atten-uation
lbs hops/ qtr
hops lb/brl
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
boil time (hours)
Pitch temp
dry hops (oz / barrel)
pale malt
brown malt
black malt
no. 3 sugar
black invert
caramel
other sugar
primings
total
21st Oct
1914
Porter
Porter
1051.25
1018.28
4.36
64.32%
7.20
1.51
2
2
1
60º
0.00
60.22%
19.59%
10.52%



9.67%

100.00%
10th Mar
1915
Porter
Porter
1050.41
1018.28
4.25
63.74%
7.23
1.52
1.5
2
1
64º
0.00
58.43%
20.22%
10.11%



11.24%

100.00%
17th Feb
1915
Porter
Porter
1050.41
1018.28
4.25
63.74%
7.20
1.51
1.5
2
1
64º
0.00
59.47%
19.47%
10.53%



10.53%

100.00%
3rd Feb
1915
Porter
Porter
1050.41
1018.28
4.25
63.74%
7.23
1.51
1.5
2
1
64º
0.00
58.08%
19.76%
10.18%



11.98%

100.00%
22nd Sep
1915
Porter
Porter
1046.26
1011.36
4.62
75.45%
8.09
1.60
2
2
1
64º
0.00
61.48%
20.23%
10.51%



7.78%

100.00%
29th Sep
1915
Porter
Porter
1046.26
1017.73
3.77
61.68%
8.14
1.71
2
2
1
64º
0.00
57.78%
19.26%
10.11%



12.84%

100.00%
6th Oct
1915
Porter
Porter
1046.26
1012.19
4.51
73.65%
7.23
1.52
2
2
1
64º
0.00
58.43%
20.22%
10.11%



11.24%

100.00%
1st Dec
1915
Porter
Porter
1046.26
1011.08
4.65
76.05%
7.13
1.39
2
2
1
64º
0.00
59.20%
20.62%
11.31%



8.87%

100.00%
10th May
1916
Porter
Porter
1042.94
1010.80
4.25
74.84%
7.26
1.40
2
2
1
60º
0.00
60.10%
20.03%
10.02%

9.35%
0.50%


100.00%
17th May
1916
Porter
Porter
1042.94
1011.91
4.10
72.26%
7.31
1.27
2
2
1
60º
0.00
60.43%
19.79%
9.09%

9.98%
0.71%


100.00%
3rd Jan
1917
Porter
Porter
1044.04
1012.19
4.21
72.33%
6.11
1.33
2
2
1
60º
0.00
58.46%
9.23%
7.69%
6.84%
6.84%
1.71%

9.23%
100.00%
10th Jan
1917
Porter
Porter
1044.04
1011.63
4.29
73.58%
6.16
1.33
2
2
1
60º
0.00
43.92%
12.84%
10.81%
4.50%
13.51%
2.25%

12.16%
100.00%
26th Apr
1917
Porter
Porter
1044.04
1009.42
4.58
78.62%
5.96
1.31
2
2
1
60º
0.00
59.32%
9.76%
7.51%
7.01%
7.01%
1.50%

7.88%
100.00%
30th May
1917
Porter
Porter
1038.78
1008.86
3.96
77.14%
5.82
1.17
2
2
1
60º
0.00
56.00%
9.14%
6.86%
6.10%
7.62%
1.52%

12.76%
100.00%
24th Oct
1917
Porter
Porter
1032.69
1009.70
3.04
70.34%
5.98
0.96
2
2
1
59º
0.00
63.50%
9.07%
7.78%
5.18%
5.18%
1.73%

7.56%
100.00%
7th Nov
1917
Porter
Porter
1032.69
1009.97
3.00
69.49%
5.98
0.96
2
2
1
59º
0.00
63.50%
9.07%
7.78%
5.18%
5.18%
1.73%

7.56%
100.00%
16th Jan
1918
Porter
Porter
1032.69
1009.42
3.08
71.19%
5.85
0.94
2
2
1
61º
0.00
63.66%
8.05%
10.24%
7.80%
1.46%

8.78%
100.00%
Source:
Documents held in the Courage Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives: ACC/2305/08/247, ACC/2305/08/248, ACC/2305/08/249, ACC/2305/08/250



The biggest change over the war years, other than the gravity drop, was the reduction in the brown malt content. It was approximately halved, from a respectable 20% of the grist to less than 10%. It appears black invert was used as a replacement for some of the dark malts. Which seems logical enough.

5 comments:

Oblivious said...

Do you think there is some evidence now that there was rationing of some dark malt’s in WW1

Ron Pattinson said...

Oblivious, in a word: no. All malt was rationed. And if you look at the table for X Ales from a couple of days ago, you'll see that they started using black malt in that towards the end of the war. And remember that X Ale was their biggest seller.

Plus, I've seen what the regulations were on malting and brewing. There's nothing about dark malts

Jeff Renner said...

Could you post an image of the table as you started doing a while back? I can't see beyond the pitch temperature.

Speaking of which, I wonder why the pitch temperature dropped.

Ron Pattinson said...

Jeff, I've added the image of the table.

Not sure why the pitching temperature dropped. I would have expected it to increase as the gravity fell. Pitching temperature is usually in inverse proportion to the gravity. At least everywhere except Courage. Sometimes they pitched stronger worts warmer.

It's more complicated because they often didn't pitch at the same temperature in all the fermenters. The larger fermenters were pitched cooler.

Jeff Renner said...

Thanks, Ron.