Wednesday 14 May 2014

Courage Strong Ales 1920 - 1928 (part one)

It's taken rather longer than planned to get to the final instalment of this little series. I had to look and check if I'd done Courage's Strong Ales yet. I hadn't.

Courage were unusual in that they appear to have had not only a Burton, but a stronger KKK as well. I'm not sure whether it was a draught or bottled beer. I'd be inclined to pick the latter, given its strength. Though Barclay Perkin's KKKK was a draught beer, sold only in the winter. With a gravity of 1078º, it was a little stronger than Courage's KKK.

Hang on a minute. I've a label of KKK so it must have been bottled at some time in its life.

Fuller's Old Burton Extra was about exactly the same strength as Courage KKK and that, too, was a draught beer. Though one which was only made in tiny quantities - often just three or four barrels. I've included a table of these London Strong Ales for comparison purposes.

Fullers, just like Courage parti-gyled their Strong Ales with their Milds. Barclay Perkins didn't, making all three of their K Ales single gyle. It was probably a practical decision. They could brew small quatities single gyle because they had more than one brewhouse. In addition to their main plant churning out hundreds of barrels of Mild and Bitter they had a much smaller one, used for small-batch and experimental beers. Sometimes they brewed batches of only 20-odd barrels, a tiny quantity for a brewery of their size.

Getting back to Courage, their SA/XXX was a typical London Burton. A gravity in the mid-1050's and a bit over 5% ABV.  Though it was more lightly hopped than the Barclay Perkins version. Not sure why they called their Burton XXX and not KK like most other London brewers. They had brewed something called KK up until 1917, a beer wjhich was discontinued in the later stages of the war.

While we're on hopping, you can see that the later versions of Courage KKK were relatively lightly hopped at around 7 lbs per quarter, compared to 11 lbs for Barclay Perkins stronger K Ales.

You can see that the boild times were a little shorter at Courage, but not by a huge amount


Courage Strong Ales 1920 - 1928
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 dry hops (oz / barrel)
1920 SA 1054.6 1015.5 5.17 71.57% 6.66 1.45 1.75 1.75 1 61º 6.76
1921 SA 1053.5 1014.4 5.17 73.06% 5.25 1.21 1.5 1.5 1 62º 5.03
1921 SA 1053.5 1014.7 5.13 72.54% 5.77 1.33 1.5 1.5 1 63º 5.17
1922 XXX 1054.3 1014.4 5.28 73.47% 5.43 1.30 1.5 1.5 1 62º 4.87
1923 XXX 1053.5 1011.9 5.50 77.72% 6.94 1.50 1.5 1.5 1 61º 5.28
1926 XXX 1053.5 6.84 1.44 2 1.5 1 61.5º 0.75
1927 XXX 1053.5 7.12 1.52 2 1.5 1 63.5º 0.00
1928 XXX 1053.5 6.79 1.51 1.5 1.5 1 61º 0.00
1922 KKK 1073.4 1024.9 6.41 66.04% 11.02 3.39 2 2 1.5 58º 7.65
1923 KKK 1073.4 1025.5 6.34 65.28% 11.00 3.28 2.5 2.5 2.5 60º 7.68
1926 KKK 1073.4 5.91 2.09 2 1.5 1 58.25º 8.32
1926 KKK 1073.4 6.92 1.97 2 1.5 1 59.5º 7.84
1927 KKK 1073.4 7.12 2.09 2 1.5 1 59º 9.82
1928 KKK 1073.4 7.48 2.26 2 1.5 1 60º 9.68
Source:
Courage brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/08/251, ACC/2305/08/253, ACC/2305/08/255 and ACC/2305/08/256.



Other London Strong Ales
Year Brewer Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp
1928 Barclay Perkins KKKK 1078.4 1025.5 7.00 67.49% 11.00 3.58 2.5 58º
1928 Barclay Perkins KK bottling 1069.5 1020.0 6.55 71.21% 11.00 2.97 2.5 2 58.5º
1926 Barclay Perkins KK 1055.5 1015.0 5.35 72.96% 9.00 1.91 1.75 1.5 58º
1925 Fullers BO 1061.5 1018.8 5.65 69.40% 7.308 1.83 1.5 1.5 60º
1925 Fullers OBE 1072.2 1021.1 6.77 70.85% 7.214 2.15 1.5 1.5 62.5º
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/01/611 and ACC/2305/01/614.
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery.

xxxx

6 comments:

StuartP said...

When I've built my time machine I'm going to 1923 and I'm coming back with a case of KKK.
If it is as good as it looks I'll kidnap a brewer, too.

J. Karanka said...

Any luck with Brains' brewing records? Can't imagine a time that a Welsh brewer would have emerged on the back of a mild (Dark) plus their most popular beer is SA (they have brewed a historic strong too).

Ron Pattinson said...

J. Karanka,

not looked, to be honest. I imagine there are some held at the brewery.

J. Karanka said...

I could pop by at some point. Is there a standard way to get some brewing records? :)

Ron Pattinson said...

J. Karanka,

you need to ask someone at the brewery if you can photograph their old records.

J. Karanka said...

They took over Buckley's brewery back in the day, so there's a chance for documents dating back to the 1780s. I remember reading stuff that suggests that old Welsh ale styles were different from English styles but never seen any hard proof (apart from Braggawd).