Saturday 25 April 2020

Let's Brew - 1938 Perry PA

Seeing as Perry styled themselves as Pale Ale brewers, it’s no surprise that they had a beer called PA.

On the face of it, it’s very similar to a London Ordinary Bitter. Beers like Barclay Perkins or Whitbread PA. The gravities were about the same and the level of hopping generally similar. Though because of the use of American hops and a longer boil, Perry’s PA comes out with rather higher (calculated) IBUs.

The recipe, however, is quite different from the London versions of PA. Much. Much simpler. It’s basically just pale malt, with a tiny amount of black malt for colour adjustment. Then some malt extract which was used as primings.

Once again, the hops were all quite old, with none from the most recent season. Oregon from the 1934 harvest, plus English and Styrian, both from 1936. The dry hops were English and Styrian from the 1936 season. I haven’t included the Styrian in the copper hops because the amount was so small – just 15 lbs out of a total of 120 lbs.


1938 Perry PA
pale malt 10.25 lb 96.61%
black malt 0.03 lb 0.28%
malt extract 0.33 lb 3.11%
Cluster 150 mins 0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins 1.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.75 oz
Styrian Goldings dry hops 0.25 oz
OG 1046
FG 1012.5
ABV 4.43
Apparent attenuation 72.83%
IBU 39
SRM 6
Mash at 152º F
Sparge at 160º F
Boil time 150 minutes
pitching temp 60º F
Yeast Wyeast 1084 Irish ale

1 comment:

qq said...

Maybe different to London, but much closer to Manchester bitter of the time :
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2019/09/lets-brew-wednesday-1939-boddington-ip.html