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Sunday 9 December 2018

Drybrough Burns Ale 1936 - 1954

After my general bullshit about Scotch Ale, here's a chance to see what happened to one particular example across WW II.

You could be excused for thinking that I'm war-obsessed. Though I sort of am. Is that wrong for a pacifist? Or totally appropriate? Don't bother answering either of those questions. I'll be destroying my sleep pondering them in bed tonight.

Drybrough is a wonderfully unfashionable brewery. Just the type I like. A typical one-recipe dull Scottish brewery. Then incorporated into the satanic Watney corporation to churn out masses of Keg Heavy. Not a brewery anyone seems to have fond memories of.

Their Burns Ale is a typical Scotch Ale of the post-WW I type. That is, just a super-strong Scottish Pale Ale. All the breweries, except William Younger, whose records I've seen brewed Scotch Ale this way. I think it's fair to assume this was the standard method.

They continued to brew Burns Ale at much its full strength almost all the way through the war.  Not sure exactly when they dropped it, but it seems to have been about when the war ended. Then returned sometime in 1948.

That's typical: the toughest years for UK brewing were the three or four aster the war ended.

Drybrough Burns Ale 1936 - 1954
Date Year OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
12th Feb 1936 1084 1030 7.14 64.29% 6.30 2.48
12th Jan 1940 1083 1026 7.54 68.67% 6.03 2.31
8th Nov 1940 1083 1028 7.28 66.27% 5.53 1.86
6th Feb 1941 1081 1028 7.01 65.43% 4.35 2.01
9th Oct 1941 1081 1022 7.81 72.84% 4.90 3.08
29th Oct 1942 1076 1029.5 6.15 61.18% 4.74 1.47
5th Feb 1943 1076 1028.5 6.28 62.50% 4.89 1.55
22nd Jul 1943 1076 1027 6.48 64.47% 4.86 1.59
13th Jul 1944 1076 1025 6.75 67.11% 4.43 1.49
12th Oct 1944 1076 1032 5.82 57.89% 4.20 1.37
23rd Feb 1945 1076 1031.5 5.89 58.55% 4.02 1.26
11th Aug 1948 1070 1031 5.16 55.71% 4.33 1.30
20th Oct 1954 1073 1032.5 5.36 55.48% 4.67 1.40
Sources:
Drybrough brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/4 and D/6/1/1/5.

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