Friday, 21 February 2020

Truman (Burton) hops in 1939

This finishes off my look at Truman's Burton beers at the start of WW II. I hope you've enjoyed it. Because I'll be going through the same exercise for their beers at the end of the war next.

Truman was unusual in using 100% English hops in all its beers. This was possibly influenced by the fact that the brewery had its own hop gardens. More standard was to employ a percentage of foreign hops. In most cases, that would have meant hops from the Pacific coast of the US. Or, in rare cases, Belgian, Czech or even German hops.

Not that, once again, the Stock Ales were different to all the others. Though it is worth bearing in mind that they were brewed in 1940, while all the others were brewed in 1939. It does mean, however, that the Stock Ales, which were brewed early in the year, had all hops from the most recent season. While the others had some from the last harvest, but also from the one before.

Unfortunately, the brewing records give no clue to either where the hops were grown in England nor their variety. Though it’s fair to assume that most would have been either Fuggles, Goldings or something similar.

Truman (Burton) hops in 1939
Beer Style OG hop 1 hop 2
X Mild 1030.2 English 1937 English 1938
X "Dark" Mild 1028.5 English 1937 English 1938
X "Light" Mild 1030.2 English 1937 English 1938
XX Mild 1035.5 English 1937 English 1938
XX "Dark" Mild 1033.8 English 1937 English 1938
XX "Light" Mild 1035.5 English 1937 English 1938
No. 7 Mild 1041.3 English 1937 English 1938
Pale1 Pale Ale 1053.5 English 1937 English 1938
Pale1 B Pale Ale 1053.5 English 1937 English 1938
Pale2 Pale Ale 1047.4 English 1937 English 1938
XXX Strong Ale 1048.2 English 1937 English 1938
B3 Ale 1056 English 1937 English 1938
R4 Ale 1052.9 English 1937 English 1938
Stock 1 Stock Ale 1105.3 English 1939
Stock 2 Stock Ale 1088.6 English 1939
Source:
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/339.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It might be that the 1937 hops were added early for bittering and the 1938 hops added later for aroma. Do you know if this was a way of using up the older hops?

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous,
I believe that's how it usually worked.