Let's Brew Wednesday - 1868 Tetley's X3P Stout

Yes, this is one of those Tetley's beers with a challenging brewhouse name. Basically a weird character that doesn't appear anywhere in the ASCII set. Or even the Unicode set. What I'm representing as "X3" is really an X with threee lines through it.

Now, I'm going to be a bit mean on the contextualisation front. Because I've already got something lined up about this Stout comparing it to London Stouts of a similar period and gravity. Much in the same drawn out, tedious way I've been comparing London and Scottish beers for the last few decades.

Though perhaps it would be better to compare this beer with Scottish Stouts. Because of the high FG and low attenuation. Ah . . . just checked my William Younger Stouts from 1868 -1869. And the buggers are all 69% to 77% apparent attenuation. There goes that theory. Though, in my defence, the 1879 version of William Younger's DBS does have similar attenuation to Tetley's X3P.

What we're really seeing is how Stout had gradually transformed itself after it left its London home and spread across Britain and, indeed, the world. Like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy, it eventually became blurred and unrecognisable.

There's a huge difference between this beer and London Stouts. As I've said many times before, London brewers were unswervingly faithful to brown malt. They stuck with it to the bitter end. Tetley's brewed with a simplified grist, just pale and black malt.

One thing I noticed when flicking through Tetley's brewing records: they didn't brew much Porter and Stout. Finding these brews took quite a hunt. While they regularly brewed PA (called East India Pale Ale in the shops), a style that was only just beginning to be brewed in the large London breweries. It's highlighting an odd paradox of London brewing. Despite being some of the largest and best-equipped breweries in Britain, the giants of the 18th and early 19th centuries were anachronistic in their dependence on Porter. For brewers in most of the rest of the Britain Porter and Stout had become a niche market by the second half of the 19th century.

The relatively small output of Stout has been borne out by my vain search for a Tetley's Stout label to decorate this article.

We may be returning to Tetley's recipes soon. The end of summer is approaching and I'll need to think of a new theme to replace Stout. I wonder if I've any photos of Imperial in my collection Tetley's brewing records? I've always wondered what that was like.







I give you over now to Mr. Technical, Kristen . . . . .

Kristen’s Version:

Notes: Ok, I said last weeks was the easiest. I was wrong. This week is the easiest. Two malts. Pale and black. I chose Golden Promise and black, both from Simpsons. This baby is big thick and rich. Pretty damn sweet to boot. Something along the lines of a sweet milk stout sans the lactose. Something that just coats your innards for a long night of boozing.