Wednesday 9 November 2016

1933 Drybrough P80/-

You can never have too many watery Scottish Pale Ale recipes, that’s what I say. But that’s not what you’re getting.

Instead it’s a full-strength, top-of-the-range Pale  Ale. Obviously, though, it being Scotland, Drybrough used the same recipe for all their beers.

You know how the standard line is that Scottish Ales get all their colour from either being boiled to gloop or roast barley? I’ve found fuck all evidence of this. Dark grains of any variety are rare in any Scottish beer other than Stout. So I was slightly surprised to discover Drybrough adding a touch of black malt to their beers in the 1930’s. I assume it’s there purely to add a little colour. Strange that they didn’t use caramel like everyone else.

Other than the pale and black malt, there’s also flaked maize, malt extract (very popular in the 1930’s) and a proprietary sugar called Avona. As I haven’t the foggiest what that is, I’ve substituted No. 1 invert. Though I could just as easily plumped for No. 2 invert.

As usual, there’s a good bit of guessing in the hops. All I know for sure is that they were all English. Making Fuggles and Golding a safe choice.

English Pale Ales in 1933 
Brewer Beer Price per pint d package OG FG ABV App. Attenuation
Barclay Perkins Pale Ale 7 draught 1049.1
Bass Pale Ale bottled 1055 1007 6.28 87.27%
Bass Blue Label bottled 1057.5 1014 5.66 75.65%
Charrington PA 7 draught 1048 1012.4 4.62 74.17%
Courage PA 8 draught 1057 1010.5 6.07 81.58%
Hoare PA 7 draught 1043 1007.8 4.58 81.86%
Hoare & Co Pale Ale 7 draught 1044.9
Ind Coope Draught Ale 8 draught 1056 1009 6.14 83.93%
Lees B 1047.0 1009.0 5.03 80.85%
Mann Pale Ale 7 draught 1052.6
Meux Pale Ale 7 draught 1043.9
Morgans Pale Ale 9 bottled 1048 1018.4 3.82 61.67%
Taylor Walker Pale Ale 7 draught 1044 1008.8 4.58 80.00%
Tetley Bitter 8 draught 1048 1008.6 5.14 82.08%
Truman PA 7 draught 1050 1005.7 5.80 88.60%
Watney Pale Ale 7 draught 1050 1015.7 4.44 68.60%
Whitbread PA 7 draught 1048.8 1012.2 4.75 75.00%
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.
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11
Lees brewing records

Going into compare and contrast mode, P80/- looks very much like and English 7d Pale Ale, or Best Bitter. Though most of the English examples have a much higher degree of attenuation, mostly over 80%. Though you can that Bass was stronger and not that far off the classic 1065º pre-WW I OG.

1933 Drybrough P80/-
pale malt 7.50 lb 70.62%
black malt 0.06 lb 0.56%
flaked maize 1.75 lb 16.48%
No. 1 invert sugar 1.25 lb 11.77%
malt extract 0.06 lb 0.56%
Fuggles 120 min 1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 min 0.75 oz
Goldings 30 min 0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.25 oz
OG 1049
FG 1015
ABV 4.50
Apparent attenuation 69.39%
IBU 31
SRM 8
Mash at 152º F
Sparge at 167º F
Boil time 120 minutes
pitching temp 59º F
Yeast WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not sure if you've seen this: http://dafteejit.com/2016/11/my-book-about-historic-beers/

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous,

no, hadn't seen it. Quite interesting. Though the 1854 Salvator seems way too highly attenuated. An OG of 18.5 would have produced a beer of around 5.5% ABV according to the analyses I have.

Anonymous said...

Nice, I was hoping you might find it interesting. I know you like to check accuracy too so hopefully there'll be fixed copies with later editions.