Wednesday 18 December 2013

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1909 Maclay PI 60/-

This is a solo recipe, I'm afraid. Hope you're not too disappointed.

I was just going through the recipes I put together for my proper book (The Home Brewer's Guide to Vintage Beer) and realised there were half a dozen recipes which had been cut for space reasons. Being a generous chap, I thought I'd share one with you.

Trying to put your finger on exactly what style this is could be tricky. It's sort of an IPA (pretty sure that's what the I in its name stands for). Bit it was later called a Pale Ale. Eventually in turned into Maclay Light - effectively a Dark Mild. What an fascinating trajectory for a beer to take: from IPA to Dark Mild in less than a century.

The recipe is typical of Pale Ales both North and South of the border of the late 19th/early 20th century. Pale malt, sugar and flaked maize. I've seen loads of similar recipes. Note that, at 47 IBUs, it's not quite the almost-unhopped Scottish beer of legend.

That got me thinking about why Scottish beer might have got the reputation for using few hops. I've seen 19th-century sources - Roberts' Scottish Ale Brewer is one - where it's mentioned that the Scots are more sparing in their use of hops than the English. And I can see from the brewing records that some Scottish brewers did hop at the lower end of the range. But that needs to be put into context.

What is that context? That English brewers hopped like lunatics. Towards the lower end of their hopping range is still a shitload of hops. If you aren't aware of that and you don't bother working out just how many hope Roberts recommended, you might assume that "fewer hops than in England" means "bugger all hops". It doesn't.

This was Maclay's top of the range Pale Ale. They brewed two weaker ones, PI 54/- and PI 42/- at 1041º and 1035º, respectively. What's odd about that? Anything under 1045º was really weak for a Pale Ale in England. Even AK, one of the lowest-gravity types of English Pale Ale, didn't get lower than about 1045º. Pale Ales below 1040º were unknown.

The trend towards lower gravity beers started earlier in Scotland than in England. Don't look to me for an explanation, becausae I don't have one. As you can see in this table, there were considerable differences in average gravity across different parts of the UK in the early years of the 20th century.

Average OG 1900 - 1914
England Scotland Ireland United Kingdom
Year average OG average OG average OG average OG
1900 -  -  -  1054.93
1905 1052.54 1049.60 1063.49 1053.23
1910 1052.30 1048.48 1064.78 1053.2
1911 1052.03 1048.18 1065.22 1053.02
1912 1051.76 1048.11 1065.43 1052.72
1913 1051.52 1047.85 1065.73 1052.64
1914 1051.69 1047.67 1065.93 1052.80
Sources:
Brewers' Journal 1921, page 246.
Brewers' Almanack 1928, page 110.
Brewers' Journal 1920, page 345.

I can explain the higher average OG in Ireland. That's because a large percentage of Irish beer production was Guinness Extra Stout, A beer which before WW I had an OG over 1070º.

That's about all my bullshit for today. I'll leave you with the recipe:


1909 Maclay PI 60/-

pale malt 2 row
0.75 lb
6.82%
pale malt 6 row
7.00 lb
63.64%
No.1 invert sugar
1.25 lb
11.36%
Flaked corn
2.00 lb
18.18%
Cluster 90 min
1.00 oz

Hallertau 60 min
1.00 oz

Fuggles 30 min
1.00 oz

OG
1051

FG
1016

ABV
4.63

Apparent attenuation
68.63%

IBU
47

SRM
3

Mash at
154º F

Sparge at
170º F

Boil time
90 minutes

pitching temp
63º F

Yeast
WLP028 Edinburgh Ale



7 comments:

BrianW said...

This doesn't look that different from the 1901 Amsdell Albany XX Ale recipe:

7 lb 6-row
2 lb corn grits
.625 lb Corn syrup
.25 lb Invert sugar
1 oz 2-row baked until black

60 minutes 1.5 oz cluster
flameout .5 oz cluster

WLP002

Willie said...

Ron, I've just got your new book, but on a quick flick though I don't seem to be able to find what the brew lengths are for the recipes. I know I could go by the % for grain and also work out the hops, but it would be good to know what you have based them on, cheers

Ron Pattinson said...

6 US gallons.

Willie said...

Thanks Ron

Looking forward to a few of these

Willie said...

Ron, I'm brewing this next week. I've read in your books about underletting after the main mash. I underlet for mashing and I'm proposing to mash at 68C for 75mins (2.13L/kg strike water 77C) and then underlet with 0.85L/kg strike water at 79C to raise the mash to 70C and let it rest for 15mins. I'm not sure whether to stir or not. Also I notice from the logs in your Mild book, Whitbread usually have an initial mash of 30min followed by a 90min underlet mash.

Am I along the right lines, any advice would be appreciated, thanks.

Ron Pattinson said...

Willie,

that sounds about right. I would say stir, because they usually rotated the internal rakes a couple of times after underletting.

Willie said...

Thanks Ron, I did this today and mashed in at around 67.8C and after 75mins added 3.75L of strike liquor at 87C, stirred and it brought the mash up to 69.4C which was a little short of the 70C target, but I'll try this method again, cheers