Bottled Scotch Ale in the 1950's

This series isn’t quite dead yet. I’ve found another relatively small set than my lazy arse can be arsed to sift through.

Scotch Ale – now there’s a topic to set my blood raging. At least when style Nazis are talking about it. Because it’s always drivel, totally unrelated to the real style. Like when they start saying that 90/- was a “traditional” name for Scotch Ale. Or “Wee Heavy” – which really just means a nip of Strong Ale.

The reality is for once much simpler than the fantasy. Have I mentioned how dull most Scottish brewing records are? Yes? Well, I’ll say it again anyway. Most Scottish brewing records are dead dull. Because they just had a single recipe which, through the magic of parti-gyling, they’d spin into 60/-, 70/-, 80/- and Strong Ale. Sometimes they even managed to squeeze out a Stout, too.

So really Scottish Strong Ale, usually called Scotch Ale outside Scotland, is just a beefed up Pale Ale. “How come it’s often dark then?” I hear you say. Because they’d colour it up with caramel to whatever shade they happened to fancy. Which was mostly dark brown. But not always, as we’ll see in a minute.

No, they didn’t use roast barley for colour, as some will have you believe. Where did that story come from? Either from someone who didn’t know, or didn’t want to believe how Scottish brewers got colour. Nor did they boil their beer for several days until it turned into syrup. Even if they ever had done that, the practise wouldn’t have survived two world wars when boil times were cut to save fuel.

I won’t go too much into the technical brewing details here. I’m saving that for another time. Just some bare bone specs this time. Mostly, as usual, courtesy of the Whitbread Gravity Book. I really don’t understand how I managed to live before finding that book.

I’ve two tables for you. First, the ones sold in Britain:

Scotch Ale in the 1950's as sold in the UK
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1953	Gordon & Blair	Strong Ale	43.5	0.05	1046.7	1006	5.32	87.15%	9 + 40
1957	Younger, Wm.	Double Century Ale	32.5	0.06	1051.5	1018.6	4.25	63.88%	80
1953	Younger, Wm.	Century Ale	36	0.05	1056.4	1021.4	4.52	62.06%	71 B
1953	Maclachlan	Strong Ale	43.5	0.05	1063.2	1016.2	6.12	74.37%	16 + 40
1953	Jeffrey	Strong Ale	43.5	0.06	1064.3	1019.7	5.79	69.36%	11 + 40
1953	Barnard	Strong Ale	43.5	0.05	1065.2	1018.2	6.11	72.09%	18 + 40
1953	Murray W	Heavy Ale	43.5	0.06	1065.9	1019.2	6.07	70.86%	13 + 40
1953	WB Reid	Strong Ale	33	0.07	1065.9	1020.3	5.92	69.20%	8 + 40
1953	Younger, Robert	Strong Ale	43.5	0.07	1066.3	1016.8	6.45	74.66%	16 + 40
1953	Tennent	Strong Ale	43.5	0.06	1066.4	1021.2	5.86	68.07%	14 + 40
1953	Deucher, James	Lochside Strong Ale	38	0.05	1066.9	1014.9	6.79	77.73%	24 B
1955	Aitken	Strong Ale	45	0.05	1067	1020.3	6.06	69.70%	105
1958	Bernard	Strong Ale			1067	1021	5.97	68.66%
1953	Younger, Geo.	Strong Ale	43.5	0.06	1067.6	1021.9	5.93	67.60%	13 + 40
1955	Younger, Geo.	Strong Ale	45	0.05	1067.6	1022.3	5.87	67.01%	100
1955	Fowler	Twelve Guinea Ale	45	0.04	1068.1	1016.9	6.67	75.18%	120
1958	Tennent	Strong Ale	31.25	0.06	1068.4	1022.7	5.71	66.81%	100
1953	Usher	Strong Ale	43.5	0.06	1068.5	1020.1	6.29	70.66%	5 + 40
1955	Maclachlan	Strong Ale	45	0.05	1068.6	1023.4	5.86	65.89%	75
1953	Steel Coulson	Strong Ale	43.5	0.07	1069.5	1014.1	7.24	79.71%	11 + 40
1955	Deucher, James	Lochside Strong Ale	45	0.04	1069.6	1019.6	6.50	71.84%	31
1953	Fowler J	Strong Ale	45	0.07	1070.3	1017.6	6.87	74.96%	12 + 40
1953	McEwan	Strong Ale	45	0.06	1070.7	1019.5	6.66	72.42%	10 + 40
1953	Younger, Wm.	Strong Ale	43.5	0.05	1071.2	1024.2	6.09	66.01%	9 + 40
1955	Younger, Wm.	No. 1 Strong Ale	45	0.04	1071.4	1024.3	6.11	65.97%	80
1955	McEwan	Strong Ale	45	0.05	1071.5	1020.8	6.59	70.91%	85
1955	Murray W	Heavy Ale	45	0.04	1071.7	1021	6.59	70.71%	105
1953	Steel Coulson	Strong Ale	45		1075
1957	Jeffrey	Dishers Extra Strong Ale	64	0.07	1088.6	1017.1	9.40	80.70%	27
	Average		43.15	0.06	1067.3	1019.3	6.20	71.22%
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.
T & J Bernard's brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
document from the Steel Coulson archive held at the Scottish Brewing Archives

There was quite a history of brewing strong beers in Scotland. That’s what they were famous for internationally. Well that and IPA. These are all, with a couple of exceptions at the start of the table, pretty powerful beers for the 1950’s. And the average gravity of 1067.3º is high. Especially when you consider average gravity of all beer was around 1037º.

For Scottish beers the degree of attenuation is also reasonably high. Though what I’ve noticed with a brewery’s 60/-, 70/- and 80/- is that there often wasn’t much difference in the FG. Meaning the stronger the beer, the higher the degree of attenuation. Scottish brewers clearly liked to leave some body in their low-gravity beers. Even if that was at the expense of ABV.

Colour. I told you I’d be coming back to that. All the above beers are dark brown. With the exception of Lochside Strong Ale and Dishers Extra Strong Ale, which are the colour of Bitter. No idea why these beers should be different to the rest.

Averaging 43d per pint, they’re about treble the price of a pint of draught Mild. So expensive beers. Though you have to take into account the higher price of bottled beer. The vast majority were sold in nip (third of a pint) bottles. Which meant a bottle of Strong Ale cost about the same as a pint of draught. I’m sure that’s not a coincidence. The price of a full pint would have scared customers off.

The second table is of Scotch Ales sold in Belgium:

Scotch Ale in the 1950's as sold in Belgium
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	Acidity	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1955	John Smith	Scotch Ale		0.08	1072.3	1022	6.54	69.57%	75
1954	John Smith	Scotch Ale		0.06	1072.6	1022.1	6.56	69.56%	95
1955	Truman	Scotch Ale		0.08	1083.4	1025.6	7.52	69.30%	80
1955	McEwan	Scotch Ale		0.07	1088.2	1020.2	8.92	77.10%	65
1955	Younger, Geo.	Gordon Highland Scotch Ale		0.07	1090.3	1029.9	7.86	66.89%	55
1954	Younger, Geo.	Gordon Highland Scotch Ale		0.06	1090.9	1028	8.20	69.20%	60
	Average			0.07	1083.0	1024.6	7.60	70.27%	71.7
Source:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002.

The sharper eyed amongst have probably spotted that three of the six aren’t even from Scotland. Unsurprisingly, these average a good bit stronger than the domestic examples. They look like the Strong Ales sold in Scotland before WW II. Which is probably what they are in reality.

What is a surprise is the relatively pale colour of the three from Scotland. Around 60 is only just about brown.

I just took a look at the Stouts. So many of the bloody things. I’ll need some special motivation to tackle those.