Tuesday 12 March 2019

Scottish Table Beer 1840 - 1880

Hi there. Being a lazy bastard again. Here's something I write about Scottish beer earlier. Because I can't be arsed to think up some of those new wordy things.

Arsed - being it, not being it. Where does that expression come from? I'm going Manchester.

While you're thinking about that, here's the boring shit:


Scottish brewers had quite a reputation for producing top-class Table Beer. This is reflected in the fact that it was often exported to England. While what Table Beer there was brewed in England was usually for quick, local consumption.

One of the odd characteristics of Scottish brewing is that it featured far more beers at the top and bottom end of the strength range than in England. Table Beer also hung around longer in Scotland. The last London Table Beer I’ve seen in the brewing records was produced in 1869. While William Younger was still brewing one in 1898.

The “beer” part of the name wasn’t random. The weakest malt liquors in the 18th century were almost always beers because, with low levels of alcohol, they needed the extra protection of more hops. And you can clearly see evidence of that in William Younger’s Table Beer, which was hopped at 11 to 12 pounds per quarter of malt. That’s a similar hopping rate to a Stock Ale.

Younger continued to brew a similar Table Beer in the succeeding decades, though the gravity fell over time, as did the hopping rate after 1868.

There’s not a huge deal to say about the grists. For the whole period they were 100% pale malt. Other than right at the start, when sometimes it was 100% pale malted bigg.


William Younger Table Beer 1848 - 1849
Date Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
15th Apr 1848 T 1035 1010 3.31 71.43% 12.00 1.74
14th Nov 1849 T 1040 1014 3.44 65.00% 11.00 1.69
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/3.


William Younger Table Beer 1851 - 1879
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
1851 T 1037 1013 3.18 64.86% 12.00 1.69
1852 T 1037 1011 3.44 70.27% 11.11 1.32
1858 T 1035 1014 2.78 60.00% 16.43 1.44
1868 T 1031 1010 2.78 67.74% 16.25 1.37
1879 T 1030 1005 3.31 83.33% 6.67 0.89
Sources:
William Younger brewings record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/5, WY/6/1/2/14, WY/6/1/2/21 and WY/6/1/2/28.

The text above is an excerpt from my tone-setting volume on the history of Scottish beer. It's dead good. Believe me.





http://www.lulu.com/shop/ronald-pattinson/scotland-vol-2/paperback/product-23090497.html 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ron

What does the hop calculation break down to per gallon. My math is bad but Im getting about 1.75 oz per gallon if Imperial. Seems like a shit load of hops for such a low gravity beer.

Ron Pattinson said...

Mark,

I make it 0.75 oz. per Imperial barrel