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