Let's Brew - 1932 Lorimer & Clark XXP 7

I had a great piece of luck earlier this week at the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh. I stumbled on a brewing book.

I wasn’t going to pass up a chance like that and quickly snapped some snaps. This is a recipe from the very first photograph. It’s an interwar Lorimer & Clark Pale Ale, with the snappy name of XXP 7. I think I understand that. XXP means Pale Ale – William Younger used the name, too – and 7 is just the price, 7d per pint. They loved naming beers after their price, the Scots.

It’s another very straightforward beer: pale malt, invert sugar, flaked maize and malt extract. The type of draught Bitter that was brewed both sides of the border. An English beer would probably have had more sugar instead of the malt extract, but otherwise be very similar. At least in terms of grist. The hopping rate is lower than in England.

Let’s make a quick comparison with Whitbread’s beers of the same era. For reference purposes, XXP & was hopped at 4.81 lbs per quarter, 0.75 lbs per barrel.

Whitbread Ales in 1932
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
LA	Mild	1026.0	1006.5	2.58	75.00%	8.50	0.93
X	Mild	1032.6	1009.0	3.12	72.39%	8.26	1.11
IPA	IPA	1035.2	1009.0	3.47	74.43%	11.00	1.64
XX	Mild	1039.0	1012.5	3.51	67.95%	8.26	1.33
XXX	Strong Ale	1045.2	1015.5	3.93	65.71%	7.49	1.45
PA	Pale Ale	1046.1	1013.0	4.38	71.80%	8.00	1.58
Ex PA	Pale Ale	1046.4	1016.0	4.02	65.52%	8.00	1.59
DB	Brown Ale	1057.8	1014.0	5.79	75.78%	9.96	2.23
Source:
Whitbread brewing book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/098.

You can see that XXP 7 was less heavily hopped than even LA, Whitbread’s low-gravity Mild. And at only half the rate of IPA, a beer of about the same strength. It’s pretty clear that XXP 7 was much less bitter than an equivalent English beer. Meaning it probably drank more like a Light Mild than a Bitter.

Nothing else I can really say. A simple, light, mild Bitter.

 

1932 Lorimer & Clark XXP 7
pale malt	6.00 lb	75.00%
flaked barley	1.00 lb	12.50%
malt extract	0.50 lb	6.25%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.50 lb	6.25%
Fuggles 90 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1037
FG	1010
ABV	3.57
Apparent attenuation	72.97%
IBU	22
SRM	5
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale