Scottish vs London Porter and Stout grists 1909 – 1913

Tables. Everyone loves them. If you don’t why the hell are you reading this? You’re well aware that I’ve been Table Man of the Year for seven consecutive years.

It’s not just any old table I’ve got for you. I’s a wildly impractical one, with way too many columns. But that it itself tells a story. One about the wide range of ingredients used by breweries in their Black Beers. Because the three London and three Scottish breweries managed to use 12 malts or adjuncts between them. And that’s ignoring all the different sugars they used. I’ve left those out because they just make things too damn confusing.

The 25 beers listed don’t have a single ingredient in common. Not even pale malt, because one of the Barclay Perkins examples used SA malt as base. After pale malt, the second most common ingredient is black malt, found in all but the Thomas Usher Stouts. Next is brown malt, present in more than half of the examples.

I was quite surprised to see that three of the breweries - two London, one Scottish – were still using amber malt. The fad for Oatmeal Stout is reflected in all the London and one of the Scottish breweries using it in some of their beers. Though there’s a huge difference in the quantities employed.  For Maclay, it made up around 30% of the grist, while none of the London brewers used more than 3%.

You may have heard the old wives’ tale about roast barley being used in Stout and black malt in Porter and that that’s what differentiates the two styles. Only one of the breweries used any. And, just to muddy things, not only used it in both Porter and Stout, but also used it in combination with black malt. Hadn’t the Truman brewers read the BJCP guidelines? Using two roasts like that is very unusual. Mostly brewers used one or the other.

There’s surprisingly little crystal malt used. Yes, three brewers used some, but only Usher put it in all their Stouts. Chocolate malt only appears in beers from two of the Scottish breweries. Though I must point out that Whitbread moved from black to chocolate malt a little later, in 1922.

Interestingly, every beer contains at least two dark malts. Though I know that some English breweries had used a simplified grist of just pale and black malt since the middle of the 19th century.

There weren’t a huge amount of unmalted grains employed, other than by Truman and, of course, William Younger. The latter using a ridiculous proportion of grits.

Every beer contained sugar, averaging around 13%. Though the percentage ranges from 6% to almost 20%. There’s no correlation between how expensive the beer was and the size of the sugar content. Whitbread’s two cheapest beers, Porter and London Stout, contained the lowest percentage. In total, twelve different types of sugar were used by the six breweries.

As I said at the beginning, a very diverse bunch of ingredients.

Scottish vs London Porter and Stout grists 1909 - 1913
Year	Brewer	Beer	Style	OG	pale malt	brown malt	black malt	amber malt	choc. Malt	crystal malt	SA malt	oats	flaked maize	grits	roast barley	malted oats	sugar
1912	Whitbread	P	Porter	1054.3	68.99%	12.66%	9.81%					0.32%					8.23%
1912	Whitbread	LS	Stout	1055.3	68.99%	12.66%	9.81%					0.32%					8.23%
1912	Whitbread	Exp S	Stout	1068.4	49.18%	9.84%	7.38%	17.21%									16.39%
1912	Whitbread	SS	Stout	1079.9	49.22%	12.18%	10.62%	16.06%									11.92%
1912	Whitbread	SSS	Stout	1095.8	49.22%	12.18%	10.62%	16.06%									11.92%
1910	Barclay Perkins	OMS	Stout	1053.2	21.27%	12.61%	10.93%	10.93%			21.27%	3.36%					19.62%
1910	Barclay Perkins	BS Ex	Stout	1076.0		8.67%	8.67%	12.41%			53.36%	2.67%					14.23%
1910	Barclay Perkins	EIP Ex	Porter	1063.5	56.04%	12.30%	8.88%	5.47%				2.73%					14.58%
1911	Barclay Perkins	RDP	Porter	1068.2	47.39%	8.65%	7.83%	11.13%		7.42%							17.58%
1909	Truman	Imperial Stout	Stout	1094.2	76.76%		2.93%						4.10%		2.93%		13.28%
1909	Truman	SS	Stout	1072.0	76.76%		2.93%						4.10%		2.93%		13.28%
1909	Truman	Runner L & C	Porter	1054.3	68.66%		4.61%						7.37%		4.61%		14.75%
1909	Truman	Country Runner	Porter	1058.2	67.82%	5.59%	2.39%			5.59%			2.39%		2.39%	1.60%	12.23%
1909	Truman	Bottling	Porter	1052.6	67.82%	5.59%	2.39%			5.59%			2.39%		2.39%	1.60%	12.23%
1909	Truman	Export Stout	Stout	1069.3	69.90%	8.74%	8.74%										12.62%
1909	Truman	Runner	Porter	1058.2	65.87%	6.35%	6.35%			6.35%		1.59%	2.38%				11.11%
1909	Truman	Keeping Stout	Stout	1069.3	69.90%	8.74%	8.74%										12.62%
1912	Thomas Usher	48/-	Stout	1046	66.39%	4.92%			6.15%	6.15%							16.39%
1912	Thomas Usher	54/-	Stout	1054	66.39%	4.92%			6.15%	6.15%							16.39%
1912	Thomas Usher	Stt	Stout	1070	66.39%	4.92%			6.15%	6.15%							16.39%
1909	Maclay	OMS 63/-	Stout	1062	47.62%		9.52%	3.17%				28.57%					11.11%
1909	Maclay	DBS 54/-	Stout	1044	50.28%		10.06%	3.35%				30.17%					6.15%
1913	Wm. Younger	S2	Stout	1059	42.86%		6.59%		6.59%					32.97%			10.99%
1913	Wm. Younger	DBS	Stout	1065	42.42%		6.06%		6.06%					33.33%			12.12%
1913	Wm. Younger	MBS	Stout	1065	49.09%		5.45%		5.45%					32.73%			7.27%
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/602
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/09/106
Truman  brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/112
Thomas Usher brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TU/6/1/5.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/58.