X Ale grists in the 1860's

While I'm on the topic of grists, I may as well do the ones for the Milds I've been boring you with. They aren't all that exciting, one or two unexpected ingredients excepted.

19th-century grists can be a great disappointment to those hoping to find exciting recipes. Porter and Stout aside, most beers had very simple grists with nothing other than base malt. It's not what I'd expected to find. But, after looking at the odd few thousand brewing records, it's clear that this is just how they brewed back then.

Over-complication is a modern failing. How many current beers have recipes that are more complicated than they need to be? My guess is quite a lot. I don't want to bore you with this, but one of my favourite beers of all time, Pretty Things XXXX Mild*, has just four ingredients. That's including water and yeast.

The London X Ales definitely have the edge in terms of grist complexity. Only Barclay Perkins ones were 100% pale malt. That these beers were pale in colour is attested by the use of white malt in some. That was the palest kind of pale malt.

The Courage grists really are unusual. I'd forgotten that they included brown malt. The percentage is pretty small so I wonder what the point was. It would have added a little colour, but also flavour. I wonder which was the prime reason for its use?

The limited amount of sugar used is also worth highlighting. Sugar had been a legal ingredient since 1847, but it wasn't immediately hugely popular. Whitbread was the first of the big London brewers to adopt it in a big way, coincidentally about exactly at this time. This is when these brewers began using sugar regularly:

Whitbread 1865
Truman 1876
Barclay Perkins 1880

When we finally get to the next instalment in this series, you'll see just how much Barclay Perkins grists were transformed by the Free Mash Tun Act.

What can I say about the provincial grists? Very little as they are, with a single exception, 100% base malt. The only exception is the Medway X Ale with its small amount of crystal malt. This is a very early sighting of crystal malt. But that's another topic we'll be learning more about later.

Almost forgot my other point: the differing gravities. You can see that London X Ale was over 1060º, the provincial ones around 1050º. There's a similar gravity gap all the way up the strength scale

That's me done. I'll leave you with the tables.

London X Ale grists in the 1860's
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	pale malt	brown malt	white malt	sugar
14th May	1867	Barclay Perkins	X	1061.2	1018.6	5.64	69.68%	9.85	2.77	100.00%
2nd Oct	1868	Barclay Perkins	XX	1078.9	1024.7	7.18	68.77%	12.89	4.47	100.00%
2nd Oct	1868	Barclay Perkins	XXX	1092.8	1030.2	8.28	67.46%	14.21	5.90	100.00%
8th Jul	1867	Whitbread	X	1061.2	1020.2	5.42	66.97%	10.12	2.95	86.07%			13.93%
16th May	1867	Whitbread	XL	1071.2	1026.0	5.97	63.42%	9.01	3.05	85.25%			14.75%
3rd Jun	1867	Whitbread	XX	1082.3	1031.3	6.74	61.95%	9.09	3.21	85.96%			14.04%
3rd Jul	1865	Truman	X Ale	1067.3	1013.9	7.07	79.42%	9	2.78	64.71%		35.29%
4th Jul	1865	Truman	40/- Ale	1072.6	1020.8	6.85	71.37%	9	3.00			100.00%
22nd Aug	1865	Truman	XX Ale	1081.2	1020.5	8.03	74.74%	11.0	7.17			100.00%
22nd Aug	1865	Truman	XXX Ale	1088.9	1022.7	8.76	74.45%	11.0	10.15			100.00%
23rd July	1867	Courage	Ale X	1065.9				10.00	3.10	97.82%	2.18%
30th July	1867	Courage	Ale XX	1078.9				10.00	3.71	91.90%	3.05%		5.05%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/032 and LMA/4453/D/01/033.
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers ACC/2305/1/572 and ACC/2305/08/275.
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/C/147.
Courage brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/08/275.

Provincial X Ale grists in the 1860's
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	pale malt	crystal malt	white malt
1st Oct	1868	Tetley	X	1047.4	1020.8	3.52	56.14%	6.00	1.11	100.00%
2nd Oct	1868	Tetley	X1	1055.4	1019.4	4.76	65.00%	6.00	1.30	100.00%
5th Oct	1868	Tetley	X2	1062.0	1017.7	5.86	71.43%	8.00	2.00	100.00%
19th Oct	1868	Tetley	X3	1066.5	1022.2	5.86	66.67%	9.96	3.93	100.00%
17th Oct	1868	William Younger	X	1053	1023	3.97	56.60%	6.30	1.36	100.00%
24th Aug	1868	William Younger	XX	1057	1024	4.37	57.89%	9.58	2.25	100.00%
26th Aug	1868	William Younger	XXX	1068	1028	5.29	58.82%	8.00	2.55	100.00%
18th Jun	1869	Medway	X	1051.5				8.00	1.75	96.88%	3.13%
2nd Jun	1869	Medway	XX	1066.8				9.00	2.63	100.00%
	1864	Lovibond	X Ale	1050.4	1015.5	4.62	69.23%	10.50	3.15	100.00%
	1864	Lovibond	XX Ale	1065.6	1015.0	6.70	77.20%	2.73	0.81	100.00%
	1864	Lovibond	XXX Ale	1074.2	1016.6	7.62	77.61%	6.50	1.04	100.00%
	1864	Lovibond	XXXX Ale	1085.3	1019.9	8.65	76.62%	10.50	2.01			100.00%
Sources:
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds document number WYL756/16/ACC1903
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive document number WY/6/1/2/21
Medway brewing record owned by me
Lovibond brewing record owned by me

* Dann has promised he'll be brewing it again soon. I can't wait to get my hands on some more of it.