X Ales in the 1860's

Looking at X Ales from the 1830's was so much fun, I've decided to revisit the topic. Except this time I'm also including provincial X Ales. I would have done the same for the 1830's except I have bugger all records from outside London for that period. That's OK. I'm making up for it now.

If you can remember as far back as the 1830's, you'll see that the gravities had fallen in the intervening 30 years. That's no surprise. The 1830's were the high point. It's been all downhill for Mild gravities ever since.

What should be immediately apparent is the disappearance of some of the high-gravity X Ales. The XXX Ales have all disappeared and some of the XXX Ales. On the other hand, both Whitbread and Truman had introduced an intermediate beer between X Ale and XX Ale. XL in the case of Whitbread, 40/- Ale in the case of Truman. I assume that the L in XL stands for London. That's usually what it meant. 40/- Ale's name is pretty easy to explain: it's the price per barrel. (Those who think the shilling system of designation was purely Scottish, please take note.)

Surprisingly, the hopping rates had increased averaging around 10 pounds per quarter compared to about 8 in the 1830's. I've absolutely no idea how to explain this. It could be connected with a change in the source of hops. There had been a revolution in hop supplies in the intervening decades. with foreign hops, especially American ones, becoming very common. In the 1830's the hops had been all English. The increased hopping rate could reflect these imported hops being of lower quality.

Attenuation had edged up a tad, and averaged closer to 70% than the former 65%. Though I'm not sure that the change is big enough to be really significant.

London X Ales in the 1860's
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenuation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermentation temp	length of fermentation (days)
14th May	1867	Barclay Perkins	X	1061.2	1018.6	5.64	69.68%	9.85	2.77	1.25	1.5	2.5	65º	º
2nd Oct	1868	Barclay Perkins	XX	1078.9	1024.7	7.18	68.77%	12.89	4.47	1.5	1.75	3	61º	77º	3 + 4
2nd Oct	1868	Barclay Perkins	XXX	1092.8	1030.2	8.28	67.46%	14.21	5.90	1.5	1.75	3	58º	77º	3 + 4
8th Jul	1867	Whitbread	X	1061.2	1020.2	5.42	66.97%	10.12	2.95				64º	º	5
16th May	1867	Whitbread	XL	1071.2	1026.0	5.97	63.42%	9.01	3.05				60º	74º	3 + 3
3rd Jun	1867	Whitbread	XX	1082.3	1031.3	6.74	61.95%	9.09	3.21				60º	74º	3 + 1
3rd Jul	1865	Truman	X Ale	1067.3	1013.9	7.07	79.42%	9	2.78				59º	º
4th Jul	1865	Truman	40/- Ale	1072.6	1020.8	6.85	71.37%	9	3.00				59º	º
22nd Aug	1865	Truman	XX Ale	1081.2	1020.5	8.03	74.74%	11.0	7.17				58º	º
22nd Aug	1865	Truman	XXX Ale	1088.9	1022.7	8.76	74.45%	11.0	10.15				58º	º
23rd July	1867	Courage	Ale X	1065.9				10.00	3.10				º
30th July	1867	Courage	Ale XX	1078.9				10.00	3.71				º
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.

Let's move on to the provincial X Ales. They cover a fairly good part of the country, being from Scotland, Yorkshire and Kent. I realise now that Lovibond, as a London brewer, should have been in the first table. Though in terms of the profile of their beers, they fit in better here. Presumably because they were considerably smaller than the likes or Truman, Whitbread, Courage and Barclay Perkins.

Provincial X Ales in the 1860's
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenuation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermentation temp	length of fermentation (days)
1st Oct	1868	Tetley	X	1047.4	1020.8	3.52	56.14%	6.00	1.11	1.5	2		66º	66º	4
2nd Oct	1868	Tetley	X1	1055.4	1019.4	4.76	65.00%	6.00	1.30	1.5	2		59º	63º	6
5th Oct	1868	Tetley	X2	1062.0	1017.7	5.86	71.43%	8.00	2.00	1.5	2		62º	65º	9
19th Oct	1868	Tetley	X3	1066.5	1022.2	5.86	66.67%	9.96	3.93	1.5	2		61º	65º	8
17th Oct	1868	William Younger	X	1053	1023	3.97	56.60%	6.30	1.36	2.5			59º	66º	3 + 3
24th Aug	1868	William Younger	XX	1057	1024	4.37	57.89%	9.58	2.25	2	2.25		58º	69º	4 + 2
26th Aug	1868	William Younger	XXX	1068	1028	5.29	58.82%	8.00	2.55	2	2.5		60º	69º	4 + 2
18th Jun	1869	Medway	X	1051.5				8.00	1.75	1.5	1.5		60º
2nd Jun	1869	Medway	XX	1066.8				9.00	2.63	1.5	1.5		60º
	1864	Lovibond	X Ale	1050.4	1015.5	4.62	69.23%	10.50	3.15
	1864	Lovibond	XX Ale	1065.6	1015.0	6.70	77.20%	2.73	0.81
	1864	Lovibond	XXX Ale	1074.2	1016.6	7.62	77.61%	6.50	1.04
	1864	Lovibond	XXXX Ale	1085.3	1019.9	8.65	76.62%	10.50	2.01
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

The table confirms what I told you before: that the beer from the large London brewers was in general stronger than from their smaller or provincial competitors. The X Ales of the big boys all had gravities over 1060º, while those of the provincial brewers were only around 1050º. The same pattern continued as you went up the strength scale, with Tetley's strongest Mild, X3, only being about the same strength as a London X Ale.

The hopping rates of the provincial beers were also lower, averaging a little under 8 lbs per quarter, while the London beers averaged almost 10.5 lbs per quarter.

It's a shame that I don't have more complete figures for fermentation temperatures. It looks as if, although the pitching temperatures were all around 60º F, that the maximum temperature was considerably lower outside London. A difference in the order of 10º F. This had to be deliberate as London brewers had total control of their fermentation temperatures. I assume the other brewers did, too, as by this time attemperators were standard pieces of kit.