England vs Scotland, part 2e: the 1840's

It's finally bye bye to Mild in this interminable series. Something completely different thistime: Pale Ale.

I'll start with a caveat. There are only seven beers from just two breweries. A rubbish sample size. I would be very reluctant to draw too much in the way of conclusions from this handful of Pale Ales.

That fact in itself tells us something. Of the three large London breweries for which I have long sets of brewing records (Whitbread, Truman and Barclay Perkins) only Truman brewed a Pale in the 1840's. As I've mentioned several times before, the Scots were ahead of the game when it came to Pale Ale. That was a big factor in the success of Edinburgh and Alloa brewers: anticipating the demand for Pale Ale.

Date	Year	Brewer	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	max. fer-ment-ation temp	length of fer-ment-ation (days)
23rd Oct	1845	Truman	Pale Ale	Pale Ale	1066.2	1017.5	6.45	73.64%	20.0	5.92				61	76.5	10
16th Mar	1846	Truman	Pale Ale	Pale Ale	1066.8	1019.1	6.30	71.37%	25.0	7.44				60	77	12
Average					1066.5	1018.3	6.38	72.50%	22.50	6.68				60.5	76.8	11.0
10th Jan	1849	Younger, Wm.	Export	Pale Ale	1061	1018	5.69	70.49%	20.00	5.41	1	2		56	65	6
24th Jan	1849	Younger, Wm.	Export	Pale Ale	1062	1015	6.22	75.81%	20.00	5.83	1.33	1.33		56	66	7
3rd Apr	1849	Younger, Wm.	Export	Pale Ale	1062	1014	6.35	77.42%	20.00	5.68	1.17	1.17		56	67	8
14th Nov	1849	Younger, Wm.	Export	Pale Ale	1063	1012	6.75	80.95%	20.00	5.95	1	1		56	67	9
7th Jun	1849	Younger, Wm.	Export	Pale Ale	1071	1017	7.14	76.06%	20.00	6.32	1			55	66	8
Average					1063.8	1015.2	6.43	76.15%	20.00	5.84	1.10	1.38		55.8	66.2	7.6
difference					-2.7	-3.1	0.05	3.64%	-2.50	-0.84	1.10	1.38	0.00	-4.7	-10.6	-3.4
Sources:
Truman brewing record document number B/THB/C/127 held at the London Metropolitan Archives
William Younger brewing record document number WY/6/1/2/3 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive

Rather than go through point by point as usual, I'll restrict myself to more general comments. The beers are generally pretty similar. Truman's has a slightly higher OG, but Younger's is a bit more attenuated, leaving the ABV almost identical. That's a bit of a turnaround. So far in my comparisons the London beers have always been the most attenuated. I can't see any huge difference in the hopping. All the beers in the table contain a shitload. Considering how similar the beers are in other respects, the difference in fermentation temperatures is striking. The maximum temperature of Truman's beers averaged over 10º F more. Yet weirdly, the Younger's beers fermented for more than three days less on average.

Whatever the differences with Truman's, Younger's Pale Ale looks the part for the mid-19th century: moderate gravity, quite high attenuation, loads of hops. And nothing at all like the cliché of Scottish beer.