It's time to look at the grists of Tetley's Milds in 1878 and those of similar London beers. Not that its going to be very exciting. Grists were, in general, pretty dull before 1880 for everything except Porter and Stout. Just loads of pale malt and the occasional dash of sugar.
Right, let's try and drag at least something out of the grists. Tetley's really are dead simple: pale malt with some colour added to a couple. I assume that's some sort of caramel colouring. Whitbread's go one step further down the simplicity path and are 100% pale malt.
Truman's and Barclay Perkins' are a bit more complex, including sugar as well. 19% in Truman's case, 14% in Barclay's. It doesn't specify which sugar, but my guess would be No. 2 invert. Both brewers also used white malt. As the name implies, it's a very pale sort of pale malt.
As there was so little to be gleaned from that particular field of grain, let's move on to the hops. Which are much more fun. What's the first thing you notice? Every single beer contains foreign hops. In the case of Tetley, it's always Bavarian hops, along with hops from various British districts. Mostly Kent, but also Worcester and Hampshire.
Bavarian hops also turn up in a couple of the London beers. Before I forget, Bavarian usually means Spalt. And in all but one Truman Mild, there are American hops in every London beer. Interesting, that. The other Truman Mild also contains Poperinge, that is Belgian, hops. Brewers liked those because they were dead cheap. Not the best quality, but cheap. As this table confirms:
UK hop imports 1864 | |||
source | lbs | Value. | Average price per cwt |
Schleswig and Holstein | 129,024 | £5,472 | £4 15 0 |
Hanover | 79,184 | £4,408 | £6 4 8 |
Hamburg | 981,456 | £54,202 | £6 3 8 |
Bremen | 690,928 | £33,141 | £5 7 5 |
Holland | 1,043,616 | £60,155 | £6 9 1 |
Belgium | 1,611,568 | £66,198 | £4 12 0 |
France | 1,132,208 | £56,380 | £5 11 3 |
United States | 5,334,000 | £267,364 | £5 12 7 |
Other countries | 47,600 | £2,543 | £5 19 8 |
totals | 11,049,472 | £549,863 | |
Source: | |||
Kentish Gazette - Tuesday 06 March 1866, page 3. |
Isn't this your lucky day? Three tables. You can see that the average price was lowest for hops from Belgium. I'm not sure why hops from Holland were the most expensive. My guess is that they were German-grown hops being shipped through a Dutch port. Note that American hops were fairly expensive.
How does that compare with the price of British hops? Make that four tables. I just happen to have details of that, too. And for the same year.
Price of hops per cwt. at Borough Market May 1864 | ||
East Kents | £7 0 to | £9 0 |
Mid Kents | £6 10 to | £8 10 |
Weald of Kent | £6 9 to | £7 0 |
Sussex | £5 10 to | £6 6 |
1862's | £3 0 to | £4 0 |
Olds | £1 5 to | £2 0 |
Source: | ||
Essex Standard - Wednesday 25 May 1864, page 4. |
The best-quality East Kents cost almost double the price of Belgian hops.
Of course, as a relatively cheap beer, Mild used cheaper hops than Pale Ales. They tended to have a high proportion of Kent and Worcester hops.
What next? Why the 1880's, of course.
Tetley Mild grists in 1878 | |||||||||
Date | Year | Beer | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation | pale malt | colour | hops |
7th Oct | 1878 | X | 1044.3 | 1012.7 | 4.18 | 71.25% | 100% | Bavarian and Kent hops | |
4th Oct | 1878 | X1 | 1048.5 | 1011.1 | 4.95 | 77.14% | 100% | Bavarian and Kent hops | |
7th Oct | 1878 | X1 | 1048.5 | 1011.6 | 4.87 | 76.00% | 100% | Bavarian and Kent hops | |
13th Dec | 1878 | X1 | 1048.5 | 1019.4 | 3.85 | 60.00% | 100% | Hampshire, Kent, Worcester and Bavarian | |
13th Dec | 1878 | X1 | 1051.2 | 1021.1 | 3.99 | 58.92% | 100% | Hampshire, Kent, Worcester and Bavarian | |
7th Oct | 1878 | X1 | 1052.1 | 1011.1 | 5.42 | 78.72% | 100% | Bavarian and Kent hops | |
4th Oct | 1878 | X1 | 1052.6 | 1011.1 | 5.50 | 78.95% | 100% | Bavarian and Kent hops | |
10th Dec | 1878 | X2 | 1056.8 | 1018.8 | 5.02 | 66.83% | 100% | 19 gallons | Bavarian and Kent hops |
9th Jan | 1878 | X2 | 1060.4 | 1015.5 | 5.94 | 74.31% | 100% | Bavarian and Kent hops | |
10th Dec | 1878 | X2 | 1060.9 | 1018.8 | 5.57 | 69.09% | 100% | 19 gallons | Bavarian and Kent hops |
9th Oct | 1878 | X3 | 1069.3 | 1016.6 | 6.96 | 76.00% | 100% | Kent, Worcester and Bavarian | |
7th Oct | 1878 | XX | 1073.1 | 1023.3 | 6.60 | 68.18% | 100% | Bavarian, Kent and Worcester hops | |
3rd Oct | 1878 | XX | 1077.6 | 1017.7 | 7.92 | 77.14% | 100% | Bavarian, Kent and Worcester hops | |
Source: | |||||||||
Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document number WYL756/25/ACC1903 |
London Mild grists 1875 - 1880 | |||||||||||
Date | Year | Brewer | Beer | OG | FG | ABV | App. Atten-uation | pale malt | white malt | sugar | hops |
16th Jul | 1878 | Whitbread | X | 1060.7 | 1015.8 | 5.94 | 73.97% | 100.00% | English and American hops | ||
16th Jul | 1878 | Whitbread | XL | 1069.3 | 1018.3 | 6.74 | 73.60% | 100.00% | English and American hops | ||
17th Jan | 1876 | Truman | X Ale | 1062.0 | 1013.9 | 6.38 | 77.68% | 81.09% | 18.91% | English and Bavarian hops | |
31st Mar | 1876 | Truman | 40/- Ale | 1068.1 | 1012.5 | 7.37 | 81.71% | 80.80% | 19.20% | English, Poperinge and Californian hops | |
31st Aug | 1880 | Barclay Perkins | X | 1060.7 | 1013.6 | 6.23 | 77.63% | 85.99% | 14.01% | Mid Kent, American and Bavarian hops | |
14th Feb | 1880 | Barclay Perkins | XX | 1079.5 | 1024.1 | 7.33 | 69.69% | 85.71% | 14.29% | Mid Kent and American hops | |
Sources: | |||||||||||
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number LMA/4453/D/01/044 | |||||||||||
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/C/156 | |||||||||||
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number ACC/2305/1/579 |
2 comments:
Bavarian hops for bitterness and aroma, plus Kent for flavour and aroma?
BryanB, difficult to say. Depends on how good the Kent hops were.
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