Friday 29 November 2019

Scottish Shilling Ales in the 1840s

These beers formed the bulk of production in Scotland until the growth of Pale Ale in the second half of the century. The name derived from the wholesale price per 54-gallon hogshead. They have no connection with the 60/-, 70/- and 80/- of post-WW II.

Though not everything with a shilling designation was what I’m calling a Shilling Ale. You also had things like 54/- Stout or 60/- Pale Ale. Shilling Ales were essentially the Scottish version of Mild Ale. Unlike English Mild Ales, however, they were mostly sold in bottled form. After racking, hogsheads or half hogsheads were sent to bottlers, who repackaged the beer and sold it.

At William Younger in the late 1840’s, there were seven Shilling ales, ranging in gravity from 1043º to 1134º. That’s a considerable spread, but they did have several features in common, such as a poor degree of attenuation and relatively modest hopping, though this wasn’t always the case at the top end of the strength range.

To put the hopping into context, English Mild Ales at this time had 8-9 lbs of hops per quarter. Looking at the hopping per quarter of malt allows the comparison of beers of different gravities. You can see in the table below that the rate was rather lower, around 4lbs per quarter, for most of William Younger’s Shilling Ales.


Scotch Ales in the 1840's 
Price OG FG ABV
£3 1080-86 1032-35 6.625
£4 1090-95 1036-39 7
£5 1100-1108 1040-44 7.75
£6 1110-1116 1045-47 8.375
£7 1120-1125 1048-50 9.25
Source: 
Scottish Ale Brewer, WH Roberts, Edinburgh, 1847, page 117


William Younger Shilling Ales 1848 - 1849
Date Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl
19th Apr 1848 42/- 1043 1012 4.10 72.09% 15.00 2.65
19th Feb 1848 60/- 1074 1037 4.89 50.00% 3.33 1.18
13th Mar 1848 80/- 1088 1038 6.61 56.82% 4.00 1.69
5th Oct 1848 100/- 1101 1039 8.20 61.39% 4.52 2.16
18th Feb 1848 120/- 1112 1045 8.86 59.82% 4.17 2.70
11th Mar 1848 140/- 1130 1059 9.39 54.62% 7.61 4.71
4th Apr 1849 160/- 1134 1063 9.39 52.99% 12.96 7.94
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/3.

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1 comment:

Phil said...

Some big boys in that list! I'd love to taste that 160/- wonder if anyone's brewing anything vaguely like that today.