Saturday 21 December 2019

Let's Brew - 1965 Whitbread W (Trophy)

Treateroonie time. A classic Big Six Bitter from the 1960s. A beer which, I'm sure even by this date, was often served in evil keg form.

Whitbread’s trick in getting a national Ordinary Bitter brand, was to simply rename the appropriate beer in the range of every brewery they took over Trophy.

At one time there were 20-odd beers called Trophy, with quite different characters. Yet if you just looked at the TV adverts, you’d have assumed it was one uniform product across the country. “Whitbread big head Trophy Bitter, the pint that thinks it’s a quart.” That’s how the jingle went.

Whitbread took some strange turns in their later years, when they become a national group. After 1880, they were relatively unusual in not using adjuncts as most other UK breweries did. They brewed from malt and sugar, except for during WW II when they were forced, as all brewers were, to use adjuncts. In the later war years, this was flaked barley.

But as early as 1946, they dropped it again. Presumably as soon as they were allowed to. They reverted to brewing from malt and sugar alone. Flaked barley returned in 1963. But only in their Pale Ales. Though by 1965 it also featured in Best Ale and Forest Brown.


1965 Whitbread W
pale malt 7.00 lb 82.35%
crystal malt 60 L 0.50 lb 5.88%
flaked barley 1.00 lb 11.76%
Fuggles 75 min 0.75 oz
Goldings 40 min 0.75 oz
Goldings 20 min 0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.25 oz
OG 1036.5
FG 1007
ABV 3.90
Apparent attenuation 80.82%
IBU 29
SRM 6
Mash at 148º F
Sparge at 165º F
Boil time 75 minutes
pitching temp 64º F
Yeast Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

The above recipe is from my overly detailed look at post-war UK brewing, Austerity!

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/austerity/23181344



5 comments:

Mike in NSW said...

In Newcastle in the mid 1970s I used to drink Trophy at one of the few Whitbread pubs, opposite the Marlborough Crescent Bus Station where I caught my bus. Obviously a former Nimmos (Castle Eden) pub and the keg Trophy there was pretty good... about 4% and a good alternative to Newcastle Exhibition.

Mike in NSW said...

Second comment:

That's a lot of flaked barley for that time (60s) but if you are a home brewer, try flaked barley as an adjunct in a lot of British ales and stouts, and you'll be well pleased. Could it be that as late as the 60s there were brewers at Whitbread who remembered the stuff from the austerity times and thought, hey that's not a bad adjunct at all, let's get back into it.

dls5492 said...

I brewed this beer today. I look forward to the results.

Andy said...

What's the pre-boil size for this recipe?

Ron Pattinson said...

Andy,

9 gallons.