Let's Brew Wednesday – 1955 Whitbread XXX

I thought I’d continue with another 1950’s Whitbread recipe. A really fun one – XXX, the strong Mild they introduced in the 1950’s and pushed a fair bit, based on the newspaper ads I’ve seen.

Though strong is a relative term in this case. Most wouldn’t consider an ABV of just over 3% “strong”. The context is Best Ale, their standard Mild, which was just 2.75% ABV. Though OG was the only difference between the two, as Best Ale and XXX were parti-gyled together.

I fear it’s going to be a very short spiel again. As you must have noticed, Whitbread didn’t exactly go in for complicated recipes. No adjuncts, just malt and sugar. In this case they’ve gone crazy and thrown in some crystal malt in addition to the mild ale malt base.

Whitbread consistently used mild ale malt as the base for their Milds and Forest Brown, while their Pale Ales used PA malt. Mild ale malt was around 10% cheaper than PA malt. There were four different types of pale malt back then: PA malt, SA malt, MA malt and plain old pale malt. MA malt was generally made from slightly lower quality barley and was kilned a bit darker than PA malt. As for SA malt – who knows? I’ve never been able to find any details about its manufacture or composition.

Hay’s M is in the grist again and, once more, I’ve substituted more No. 3 Invert. The hops being all Mid Kent, I’ve stuck my neck out and gone for Fuggles. Note the short boil on this one. The first copper was really only boiled for 60 minutes. Whitbread dropped down to 1 hour boils for some beers in 1942, presumably to save fuel and probably at the order of the government.

Oh, you’ll need to add caramel to get the right colour.



Reckon that’s me done, just the recipe left . . . .

1955 Whitbread XXX
mild malt	5.75 lb	79.31%
crystal malt 80L	0.50 lb	6.90%
no. 3 sugar	1.00 lb	13.79%
Fuggles 60 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 40 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 20 min	0.50 oz
OG	1034.8
FG	1010
ABV	3.28
Apparent attenuation	71.26%
IBU	22
SRM	30
Mash at	147º F
Sparge at	168º F
Boil time	60 minutes
pitching temp	65º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale