William Younger's Porter 1851 - 1869

I'm not sure why I've never examined William Younger's Porter closely. Because there are some odd things about it. Very odd things.

First, that they couldn't decide on the brewhouse name, calling it both P and BS. The latter name, presumably short for Brown Stout, would imply it was a Stout. Then why sometimes call it P? And in terms of gravity, it's definitely in Porter rather than Stout territory.

The level of attenuation is very patchy, varying from 57% to 73%. The top end is what I would have expected. In the 1850's and 1860's, London Porter was 70-75% attenuated.

In some ways these Porters are very unlike Younger's other beers. The boils - especially in the 1850's - were longer. Their other beers were boiled for 90 minutes at most. The difference wasn't as big in the 1860's, but was still there. The pitching temperature of the Porters was higher - other beers were pitched at 56-60º F, as was the maximum fermentation temperature, which for other styles didn't exceed 70º F. Unsurprisingly given the higher temperature, the fermentation was also shorter, by one to three days.

In the 1850's, the hopping levels were similar to in London: 2.75-3 lbs per barrel. By the 1860's, they'd fallen to about half the level in London, where the hopping rate had remained constant.

I've been saving the oddest until the last: the grists. The percentage of brown malt is very high in the examples from the 1850's. So high that they must have been using diastatic brown malt, something that I thought had disappeared before this date. The pale malt percentage was more normal-looking in the 1860's, but the percentage of amber malt is very high in some examples. Note that brown malt had been dropped by then.

Other than the single example that's just pale and black malt, none of the grists look like English ones. It's all very odd.

William Younger Porter 1851 - 1869
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)	pale malt	brown malt	black malt	amber malt
1851	BS	1057	1017	5.29	70.18%	21.75	3.08	2.25		64º	73º	3 + 2	42.92%	32.45%	24.63%
1851	BS	1056	1015	5.42	73.21%	23.87	2.86	2.25		63º	72º	4 + 1	24.73%	56.08%	19.19%
1851	BS	1060	1022	5.03	63.33%	23.46	2.61	2.25		63º	72º	3 + 2	24.32%	55.16%	20.52%
1851	BS	1060	1021	5.16	65.00%	25.26	2.93	2.5		64º	73º	3 + 2	26.08%	59.14%	14.78%
1851	BS	1060	1024	4.76	60.00%	27.37	3.17	2.25		64º	71º	3 + 2	26.08%	59.14%	14.78%
1851	BS	1063	1023	5.29	63.49%	7.50	0.91	2		64º	72º	3 + 1	30.60%	69.40%
1852	BS	1057	1018	5.16	68.42%	23.87	2.93	2.25		64º	72º	3 + 3	24.73%	56.08%	19.19%
1858	BS	1052	1022	3.97	57.69%	18.33	2.75	2		61º	72º	3 + 3	56.95%	14.35%	14.35%	14.35%
1858	BS	1054	1022	4.23	59.26%	16.67	2.22	2.33		62º	72º	3 + 2	56.95%		14.35%	28.70%
1868	Bg	1046	1020	3.44	56.52%	8.00	1.45	3		61º	69º	3 + 2	92.25%		7.75%
1869	BS	1041	1017	3.18	58.54%	7.69	1.18	2.5	3	61º	66º	2 + 3	45.26%		13.69%	41.06%
1869	P	1048	1018	3.97	62.50%			2.75		62º	67º	2 + 1	68.80%		10.40%	20.80%
1869	BS	1042	1018	3.18	57.14%	7.50	1.46	2.5	3	61º	67º	2 + 3	68.80%		10.40%	20.80%
Sources:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/5, WY/6/1/2/14 and WY/6/1/2/21.