Monday 25 February 2013

Tetley Pale Ale 1858 - 1896

As you can see, my laziness continues. I still can't quite make myself work through Tetley's Milds yet. So this time we're looking at their Pale Ale.

Was it a Pale or an IPA? Now there's a tricky question. Inside the brew house, the name was definitely PA. But all the advertisements call it East India Pale Ale. So what is it really? To be honest, I don't really care. Pale Ale, IPA - it's pretty much the same thing, despite what anally-retentive home brewers might insist.

As usual, I'll be making a comparison with my usual benchmark, similar beers from London. But, because this is Pale Ale we're looking at, I've thrown is some from Truman's Burton brewery, too.

There's phenomenon that you often see when a beer style is new. Initially, versions from different breweries and in different regions are very similar, clearly taking a beer as an example and cloning it fairly closely. As time progressed, versions from different regions begin to diverge and acquire their own character.

You can see this in the beers below. The Pale Ales from Yorkshire, London and Burton are generally very similar beers. The gravities, level of attenuation and hopping levels are all broadly the same. OG's in the low 1060's, 75-80% attenuation, 4-5 lbs of hops per barrel. Whitbread's hopping rate was a little lower and Tetley dropped theirs in the 1890's, but in general there's not much between the beers in terms of specifications.

There is some difference in the process. The boil times are quite short in London and quite long in Burton with Leeds in between. The pitching temperature looks much higher at Tetley but, as they didn't let it rise much during fermentation, there was probably little difference in the actual fermentation temperature. But because I don't have the maximum temperatures for Whitbread and Truman, we can't see that for certain.

I'm not sure what I've proved with this, other than that Pale Ales were much the same everywhere in the late 19th century.

Next time, we'll be seeing how the grists of these beers compare.


Tetley Pale Ale 1858 - 1896
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days)
1858 A 1062.6 1015.0 6.30 76.11% 17.56 4.39 1.5 1.5 60º 70º 9
1858 A 1063.7 1023.8 5.28 62.61% 17.56 4.39 1 1 58º 69º 9
1858 A 1065.1 1029.9 4.65 54.04% 17.56 4.39 1.5 1.5 61.75º 70º 8
1868 PA 1060.1 1015.0 5.97 75.12% 18.00 4.60 1.5 1.5 59º 64º 7
1868 PA 1061.8 1012.2 6.56 80.27% 18.00 4.44 1.5 1.5 58º 65º 8
1868 PA 1058.2 1014.4 5.79 75.24% 18.00 4.14 1.5 2 62º 68º
1878 PA 1060.7 1011.6 6.49 80.82% 18.00 4.69 2 68º 69.75º 10
1878 PA 1056.5 1011.6 5.94 79.41% 18.00 4.37 2 68º 69.75º 10
1878 PA 1060.7 1011.6 6.49 80.82% 18.00 4.45 2 68º 69.75º 11
1878 PA 1060.7 1011.1 6.56 81.74% 18.00 4.57 2 68º 69.5º 10
1888 PA 1063.2 1011.4 6.85 82.02% 16.00 5.75 2 61º 68º 8
1896 PA 1062.9 1011.6 6.78 81.50% 13.92 3.64 2 2 2 60.5º 68.5º 9
1896 PA 1062.0 1012.2 6.60 80.36% 12.29 3.00 2 2 2 60.5º 68.75º 9
Sources:
Tetley brewing records held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document numbers WYL756/11/ACC1903, WYL756/16/ACC1903, WYL756/25/ACC1903, WYL756/44/ACC1903 and WYL756/49/ACC1903.

Whitbread Pale Ale 1865 - 1896
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days)
1865 PA 1061.8 1012.7 6.49 79.37% 14.67 4.36 58º º 7
1867 PA 1063.2 1017.7 6.01 71.93% 15.06 4.87 58º º 6
1878 PA 1058.4 1011.1 6.27 81.04% 12.19 3.60 2.33 58º º 10
1888 PA 1061.2 1018.8 5.61 69.23% 12.43 3.49 1.33 1.75 57º º
1896 PA 1060.9 1015.0 6.08 75.39% 14.59 4.03 1.5 1.75 57º º
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers 


Truman (Burton) Pale Ale 1877 - 1887
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp
1877 P2 1062.3 1019.4 5.68 68.89% 19.00 5.01 3 3 3 58º
1877 P1 1066.5 1016.6 6.60 75.00% 19.00 5.39 3 3.25 3 57º
1887 P1 S 1066.5 1019.4 6.23 70.83% 17.44 5.00 3 3 3 56º
1887 P2 1061.2 1013.9 6.27 77.38% 14.70 4.45 3 3 3 58º
Sources:
Truman brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers B/THB/BUR/35 and B/THB/BUR/11.

1 comment:

pdtnc said...

when Tetleys was really Tetleys! :)