Let's Brew Wednesday - 1950 Whitbread Exp PA

An exotic treat for you today: a strong export Pale Ale from the early 1950's.

It's a funny period. British beer strengths were just starting to recover from their postwar nadir. But most beers were still pretty week. Whitbread Best Ale (Mild) was only 1032º, IPA 1035º and PA 1040º. Not particularly impressive. Apart from the odd strong beer  that was made in tiny quantities, there was almost nothing stronger and 1050º. Which is why this is an unusual beer.

Whitbread had been in the export business for a long while. Like most other large London brewers they took advantage of the port and Britain's imperial muscle to ship beer all around the world. For the export trade, already weakened at the end of the 19th century by the growth of Lager, the glory days ended with WW I. Most foreign markets had been closed or dried up. Sales in the empire had been badly hit as colonies built their own brewing industries.

Where was left? Belgium.

Let's take a look in detail at British exports:

British Beer Exports 1946 – 1953
	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950	1951	1952	1953
Channel Isands	5,342	7,021	9,958	9,693	6,505	2,721	8,959	9,815
Gibraltar	5,698	7,077	6,958	7,609	8,530	8,693	8,183	8,325
Malta	414	521	673	897	336	624	445	484
Cyprus		2,593	2,312	2,112	2,538	4,002	2,712	2,099
British West Africa	1,574	5,797	18,044	34,626	33,811	35,593	50,636	58,049
British East Africa	1,361	2,624	7,316	13,391	4,014	4,341	1,900	1,511
Aden	50	1,284	2,327	4,200	2,684	2,006	2,897	5,927
Bahrein, Koweit, etc		594	5,141	7,813	4,099	4,039	5,073	4,756
India and Pakistan	69,278	8,130	17,075	18,076	15,333	11,890	9,451	5,617
British Malaya	26,270	6,377	10,463	12,258	11,666	14,412	6,028	5,447
Ceylon	2,648	7,686	3,565	6,669	6,363	5,605	5,656	8,624
Hong Kong	10,062	5,873	5,679	12,863	9,508	12,027	7,254	4,811
Australia		54	8,481	18,761	16,879	35,790	8,303	57
Canada		313	1,598	1,281	2,090	3,352	3,680	3,892
Bermuda	22	788	977	1,603	2,843	1,901	1,466	948
British West India Islands	251	1,045	15,087	14,009	15,459	15,213	16,112	17,123
Bbritish Guiana	38	175	1,991	2,752	3,871	3,247	6,056	6,594
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan		1,843	3,069	5,747	5,291	6,805	6,277	3,035
Irish Republic	221	3,280	11,327	6,201	4,225	5,223	4,966	4,674
Other British Countries	74	972	6,470	6,719	7,153	8,927	10,260	6,570
total	123,303	64,047	138,511	187,280	163,198	186,411	166,314	158,358
Norway	595			1			17	79
Iceland	11		7	5	1	1	10	20
Faroe Islands	12		6
Germany	543	1,196	3,275	3,140	3,144	5,349	3,995	3,618
Belgium	1,405	3,414	34,288	33,786	33,362	45,733	50,237	55,240
France	756	193	294	611	645	817	882	852
Italy	2,564	121	71	17	44	28	21	92
Greece		2,954		1,917	137	196	24
Algeria			18				5	6
Libya	14	190	3,381	6,576	4,571	4,150	3,040	1,634
Transjordan		95	675	821	155	362	227	66
Palestine	1,299	8,684	3,045
Egypt	12,536	12,709	7,587	6,999	4,782	11,001	29,288	51,981
Iraq	1,760	7,792	5,621	4,936	2,503	3,763	2,516	3,619
Iran	1,898	1,700	1,996	1,971	553	259	89
Burma	40,439	5,695	31	147	636	1,018	1,800	1,173
USA		270	2,986	1,921	1,563	967	1,373	1,328
Other Foreign Countries	283	620	3,306	3,999	5,916	15,378	7,552	6,873
total	64,115	45,633	66,587	66,847	58,012	89,022	101,076	126,581
Grand total	187,418	109,680	205,098	254,127	221,210	275,433	267,390	284,939
Source:
“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, pages 58-59.

As you can see, in 1950 Belgium was the second biggest recipient of British exports, second only by a few barrels to British West Africa. Belgium received more than 50% of exports to non-British countries and 15% of all exports.

Whitbread Pale Ale is still sold in Belgium. No idea where it's brewed.






That's me done. Over to Kristen . . . . . . .

Kristen’s Version

A very straightforward beer here that doesn’t require a whole lot of explanation. This one does very well on cask as it can get a bit ‘tinny’ on draught.




Ingredients

Grist–Three different English pale malts. Really your choice here. All are indicated as ‘second’ grade so its really your preference here. I used Maris Otter, Golden Promise and some Halcyon split evenly. For the sugar I used straight No1 invert. Very simple to make and use in this beer. The tiny bit of caramel does add a hint of caramelly goodness but very little of anything else. A very simple recipe so make your decisions based on your preference. I think the %sugar to malt is what I’d focus on more than what type of malt. See how this much sugar plays in this beer. You can split your batch and add your sugar directly to your fermenter if you’d like. Just be sure to calculate your hopping BU if you do this as the lower gravity will extract more bitterness.

Hops–They call for Worcester Goldings which I used b/c I had them and don’t get to use them very often.
Wonderful little hops that I wish I got more often. Stick with something Goldings or go experimenting at your leisure just make sure they are lower alpha hops.

Yeast – The dry or the wet Whitbread works very nicely here. I’m not a big fan but it plays very nice with the sugar in the beer.