Wednesday 15 July 2015

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1952 Strong SPA

We’ve just about finished off the set of Strong’s beers from the 1950’s. Quite an interesting set.

This time it’s their, er, strong Pale ale. A beer that was sold in bottled format only. Bottled beer was on the rise again in the 1950’s after being beaten down by wartime restrictions. Less popular styles like Stout retreated from draught, but other beers were designed to be bottled only. Things like Brown Ale and Light Ale.

This gives a flavour of the shift in consumer preference from cask to bottled beer:

“A CONTINUOUS and growing demand for bottled was reported by H.W. Lake, MC. the chairman of directors at the Annual General Meeting of Cheltenham and Hereford Breweries, Ltd which was held the Fleece Hotel, Cheltenham. yesterday.

In his remarks amplifying his statement circulated to shareholders, he said "In this part of the world people are changing. They like beer out of a bottle and not out of a cask.

"While this is proceeding here to such an extent, I want to tell you that this Company is prepared for this change.

"Under the direction of the brewers helped by Mr Hopcraft, we have a bottling plant which can cope with all the present demands and it is up to us to thank the management and the brewers that they have able to design improvements in our bottle store, by which we ran cope with this extraordinary demand for bottled beer which increases every year, and looks like increasing."

. . . .

“The outstanding feature this year is that although the output of beer in cask declines, the demand for bottled beer continually increases. We are, however, now able to meet all demands for bottled goods, having concentrated our bottling at Cheltenham with a complete range of modern plant running smoothly and economically.””
Gloucester Citizen - Saturday 16 December 1950, page 2.

Getting back to the beer in question, it has one notable feature: it’s very pale. At 13.5 on the old Lovibond scale, it’s only a tad darker than the 12.5 of their Golden Ale. It’d got me thinking about the colour of Pale Ale. I’ve often wondered just how pale 19th-century versions were. What was a typical colour in the early 1950’s?

So I had a look at other Pale Ales of the same era. I’ve plenty of analyses. And I’ve arranged them nicely in a table:

Pale Ale colour in 1952
Year Brewer Spotlight Price size package OG colour
1952 Ansell Pale Ale 10d half pint bottled 1038.3 19
1952 Cobbs Brewery Pale Ale 10d half pint bottled 1031.5 26
1952 Barclay Perkins Pale Ale 15d pint draught 1034.6 19
1952 Barclay Perkins Pale Ale 16d pint draught 1033.22 24
1952 Barclay Perkins H & O Pale Ale 16d pint draught 1032.78 23
1952 Bass Pale Ale half bottled 1036.7 20
1952 Bass Pale Ale 19d pint draught 1044.81 22
1952 Bass Pale Ale 19d pint draught 1046.44 24
1952 Beasley Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1037.18 30
1952 Benskins Pale Ale 18d pint draught 1038.98 23
1952 Charrington Pale Ale 15d pint draught 1034.06 18
1952 Courage Pale Ale 16d pint draught 1037.47 24
1952 Courage Pale Ale 19d pint draught 1039.99 26
1952 Courage Pale Ale 18d pint draught 1039.04 32
1952 Ind Coope Pale Ale 19d pint draught 1044.08 26
1952 Ind Coope Pale Ale 19d pint draught 1043.7 23
1952 Ind Coope Coronet Pale Ale 19d pint draught 1044.86 23
1952 Ind Coope Pale Ale 11d half pint bottled 1035.6 22
1952 Lacons Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1037.98 30
1952 Lacons Pale Ale 18d pint draught 1037.93 25
1952 Lacons Bitter 17d pint draught 1037.36 28
1952 Lees Bitter 1040.0 20
1952 Lees Pale Ale 1040.0 20
1952 Mann Macs No.1 Pale Ale 20d pint draught 1044.91 20
1952 McMullen Pale Ale 10.5d half bottled 1038.2 30
1952 Meux Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1036.04 20
1952 Taylor Walker Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1037.65 24
1952 Tetley Pale Ale 16d pint draught 1036.27 20
1952 Tollemache Resch's Bitter Ale 18d pint draught 1035.96 23
1952 Tooth & Co Pale Ale half bottled 1043.1 13
1952 Truman Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1037.15 20
1952 Truman Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1037.14 24
1952 Truman Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1036.72 20
1952 Truman Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1036.52 24
1952 Watney Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1037.42 24
1952 Watney Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1035.72 26
1952 Wenlock Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1036.09 32
1952 Wenlock Pale Ale 16d pint draught 1036.69 27
1952 Whitbread Pale Ale 17d pint draught 1038.12 28
1952 Younger "Monk" Export 17d pint draught 1035.92 26
1952 Wm.Younger 1/1d half bottled 1046.9 24
Average 1038.4 23.7
Sources:
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Lees brewing recods


The only one that’s paler is from Australia. Only a handful have a colour of less than 20. It’s clear that SPA was unusually pale.

The table also tells us that SPA was up at the top end of the strength scale for Pale Ales. Only two are stronger and one of those is Bass.

The recipe is extremely simple: pale malt, sugar and English hops. Attenuation is relatively low, meaning the finished beer should have plenty of body, probably drinking stronger than it really is. A beer I’d really like to taste.




That’s me done, so over to me for the recipe . . .




1952 Strong SPA
pale malt 6.75 lb 74.34%
no. 1 sugar 1.00 lb 11.01%
glucose 0.75 lb 8.26%
candy sugar 0.25 lb 2.75%
malt extract 0.33 lb 3.63%
Fuggles 90 min 0.75 oz
Goldings 60 min 0.75 oz
Goldings 30 min 0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.25 oz
OG 1045.4
FG 1015.2
ABV 4.00
Apparent attenuation 66.52%
IBU 31
SRM 4.5
Mash at 152º F
Sparge at 160º F
Boil time 90 minutes
pitching temp 62º F
Yeast WLP007 Dry English Ale


4 comments:

Doug Warren said...

Mr. Hopcraft. Perfect name for a brewer.

J. Karanka said...

Getting a bit confused with the colours, is 13.5 lovibond really 4.5srm? What are the ranges of the beers in srm?

Ron Pattinson said...

J. Karanka,

lovibond is about double modern EBC, which is about double SRM.

Sean Palmateer said...

What do you mean when you say, "other beers were designed to be bottled only"?

Were the recipes/processes for Brown Ale and Light Ale developed to make them better suited for being bottled? Or was it just a naming convention and marketing?