Saturday 24 March 2012

England vs Scotland, part 3h: early 1850's Ordinary Stout

It's funny fun fun time again. As I ponderously plod through the muddy field of 1850's brewing. Will I ever make it back to the road?

Wacky and unconventional as I am, I've broken with the alphabet, skipping Stock Ale and moving directly to Stout. Don't despair (or sigh with relief), I will be returning to it. I'm just having arsing issues. It's all just a little bit too complicated. And Stout follows naturally on from Porter, which was part 3g, in case you've forgotten.

The fun part is making up new beer style names. Today's is Ordinary Stout. Or Stout between 1072º to 1087º. Why those specific gravities? Well, it's as rational as many of the official style guidelines: That was the range of English Stouts that gave me an average OG the same as the Younger's DBS I'm comparing them to.

To be honest, they are a fairly random and diverse bunch, those London Stouts. A mix of Single and Double, Running and Keeping, domestic and Export Stouts. That's reflected in the wide range of gravities and hopping rates.

You've probably noticed one slight problem with this set of data: there's only one Scottish beer. There's a very good reason for that. A disarmingly simple one. Younger didn't brew much Stout. I've 205 beers in my photos of this particular Younger's log. Only two of them are Stout. So be warned, the comparisons in this post are for amusement purposes only. Not that you'll be laughing much.

Here's the table. I'll leave you some time to digest it before pushing you further down the rutted cart track of analysis.


England vs Scotland early 1850's Stout 1072º to 1087º
Date Year Brewer Beer OG FG ABV App. Attenuation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fer-ment-ation temp length of fer-ment-ation (days)
30th Jan 1850 Whitbread KS 1072.6 1022.4 6.63 69.08% 22.00 7.09 1.5 2 2 63
24th Nov 1854 Whitbread S 1072.6 1024.9 6.30 65.65% 11.92 4.01 1.5 1.5 2 63
13th Apr 1852 Whitbread KS 1072.9 1026.3 6.16 63.88% 21.79 6.88 1.5 1.5 2 63
5th Dec 1850 Truman M Keeping Stout 1073.1 1028.5 5.90 60.98% 11.8 3.87 65.5 12
15th Dec 1853 Whitbread S 1074.0 1025.5 6.41 65.54% 13.51 4.52 1.5 1.5 2 63
8th Oct 1851 Whitbread S 1074.2 1024.4 6.60 67.16% 12.16 4.21 1.5 1.5 2 63
11th Aug 1852 Whitbread S 1074.2 1023.8 6.67 67.91% 13.85 4.57 1.5 1.5 2.5 63
17th Nov 1854 Whitbread S 1074.2 1026.9 6.27 63.81% 4.02 1.30 1.5 1.5 2 63
16th May 1850 Whitbread KS 1074.8 1025.8 6.49 65.56% 21.63 6.91 1.5 2 2 63
31st Oct 1850 Whitbread KS 1074.8 1024.9 6.60 66.67% 21.53 7.45 1.5 2 2 63
17th Mar 1854 Whitbread S 1074.8 1027.1 6.30 63.70% 14.99 5.00 1.75 1.5 2 62
25th Oct 1850 Whitbread S 1075.1 1027.1 6.34 63.84% 11.83 4.03 1.5 2 2 63
5th Sept 1851 Whitbread S 1075.3 1027.1 6.38 63.97% 10.86 4.56 2 2 63
21st Apr 1855 Whitbread Expt S 1075.3 1023.8 6.82 68.38% 19.59 6.28 1.5 1.5 2 63
13th Dec 1850 Truman M Keeping Stout 1077.3 13.5 4.31 64.5 8
16th Jul 1850 Truman Running Stout 1079.8 1027.7 6.89 65.28% 12.2 3.99 68 7
11th Nov 1854 Whitbread SS 1081.4 1025.5 7.40 68.71% 11.45 4.72 1.5 1.5 2 62
2nd Jul 1850 Truman Running Stout 1081.7 1027.1 7.22 66.78% 12.7 4.26 65.5 7
24th Oct 1853 Whitbread SS 1083.1 1030.5 6.96 63.33% 12.13 5.00 1.5 1.5 2 63
10th Jul 1850 Truman Running Stout 1083.9 1027.7 7.44 67.00% 12.2 4.09 67.5 7
23rd Mar 1852 Whitbread SS 1084.8 1034.1 6.71 59.80% 12.15 4.67 1.5 1.5 2 62
11th Nov 1852 Whitbread KSS 1085.3 1029.4 7.40 65.58% 18.83 7.50 1.5 1.5 2 63
30th Jan 1852 Whitbread SS 1085.9 1031.0 7.26 63.87% 12.47 4.89 1.5 1.5 2 62
19th Nov 1852 Whitbread SS 1086.1 1029.9 7.44 65.27% 13.57 5.74 1.5 1.5 2 63
22nd Aug 1853 Whitbread SS 1086.7 1030.7 7.40 64.54% 21.02 9.17 1.5 2 63
Average 1078.2 1027.2 6.75 65.26% 14.55 5.16 1.5 1.7 2.0 63.5 8.2
29th Oct 1851 Younger, Wm. & Co DBS 1078 1015 8.33 80.77% 13.40 5.63 2.25 64 7
difference -0.2 -12.2 1.59 15.51% -1.15 0.46 0.71 -1.7 -2.0 0.0 0.5 -1.2
Sources:
William Younger brewing records document number WY/6/1/2/5 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
Whitbread brewing records document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/043, LMA/4453/D/09/044, LMA/4453/D/09/045, LMA/4453/D/09/046, LMA/4453/D/09/047 and LMA/4453/D/09/048 held at the London Metropolitan Archives
Truman brewing record document number B/THB/C/052 held at the London Metropolitan Archives


You'd be disappointed if I didn't cut the tape with hopping rates. I swear that I haven't selected the English beers to get this result. That lonely Younger's DBS has about a half pound more hops per barrel than the average of the London Stouts. Though 8 of the London beers have more than DBS. Like I said, for amusement purposes only, these comparisons. With that caveat: in the early 1850's Younger's Ordinary Stout wasn't less hopped than equivalent London beers.

There's the same problem with boiling times as with Porter. A single boil at Younger, multiple boils in London. I'm going to keep my mouth shut because I have nothing sensible to say.

Pitching temperatures come to my rescue again. It's so simple. There's bugger all difference between Younger's pitching temperature and the London average. 64º F seems to have been the favourite both sides of the border. Another case, I think, of Younger deliberately copying London methods. It makes sense. London brewers were the great Porter and Stout experts. In the early 1850's Younger's Ordinary Stout was pitched at the same temperature as equivalent London beers.

Attenuation and ABV are a bit of a turn up. Though please remember there's just the one Younger's beer. For once. the attenuation of Younger's Stout is much greater than the London beers. A whopping 15% more. Which naturally means that the Younger's ABV is also higher. But it could just be a one-off, this DBS. I'm keeping shtum again.

We're wrapping up with fermentation length. Which was a bit shorter for DBS. But there's bugger all data. Let's quickly move on to the rounding up.

Apart from the unusually high degree of attenuation of Younger's DBS, it looks pretty similar to the London Stouts. I think deliberately so. Especially when you learn that the grist contains something called "London brown".

There's one more equally futile Stout comparison to come. Then just the Stock Ales to go before we finally pull into later 1850's Junction. And repeat the whole tedious process again.

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