Scottish Mild in WW II (part three)

One final post on Younger's WW II Milds. It's been a roller-coaster ride. I'm still high from the adrenaline.

I’m going to concentrate on the grists of XXX now. For a good reason. The other two, X and XX, pretty much exclusively parti-gyled with XXX. While XX was quite often brewed single-gyle. Also, there were far fewer brews of X and XX than XXX. Given how volatile recipes were in the middle of the war, XX offers better opportunities for tracking them all.

Having kicked off the war with grits, a form of maize, as their adjunct of choice, there were bound to be big changes. The war cut off imports of maize and brewers dependent on it had to look for alternatives. Initially, that was flaked rice. Ultimately, flaked barley. Inbetween a variety of other adjuncts were employed. Often more than one at the same time.

There’s nothing very complicated about the malt bill. It’s simply pale malt, crystal malt and the mysterious “M”. I’m really not sure what it was. The one log where they spell it out fully, I can’t read it. Though there are a couple which say Munich, so perhaps that’s what it is. Or possibly melanoidin malt.

The rise in the proportion of base malt is down to a reduction in the amount of adjuncts employed. Pre-war, most of Younger’s beers were around 45% grits. The largest percentage of adjuncts I’ve seen. More than 15% unmalted grains was unheard of at most breweries.

The sugars are also a bit tricky to pin down. One is simply described as “invert”, the other is a proprietary sugar called CWA. As invert only appears in dark beers, my money is on it being No. 3. But I could be wrong.

All I really know about CWA is that it was a starch conversion syrup, i.e., an enzymatic syrup. I’m assuming some sort of diastatic malt extract, like DME. Malt extract of this type were surprisingly common in the middle of the 20th century.

William Younger XXX Ale malt and sugar 1939 - 1944
Date	Year	OG	pale malt	crystal malt	M malt	invert	CWA
17th Nov	1939	1037	45.00%	6.00%	6.00%	2.00%	2.00%
19th Sep	1940	1036	48.11%	5.66%	5.66%	1.89%	1.89%
13th Mar	1941	1035	45.92%	6.12%	6.12%	4.08%	4.08%
9th Dec	1941	1036	62.26%	5.66%	5.66%	1.89%	1.89%
26th Dec	1941	1035	59.43%	5.66%	5.66%	3.77%
23rd Jan	1942	1034	60.00%	6.00%	6.00%	4.00%
24th Apr	1942	1033	57.45%	6.38%	6.38%	0.00%	4.26%
15th Jul	1942	1033	72.00%	6.00%	6.00%	4.00%
8th Aug	1942	1033	72.00%		12.00%	4.00%
11th Dec	1942	1033	63.46%	11.54%	5.77%	3.85%	3.85%
4th Nov	1943	1033	66.00%		12.00%	2.00%	2.00%
9th Nov	1943	1033	63.83%	6.38%	6.38%	2.13%	2.13%
14th Jan	1943	1033	60.58%		11.54%	3.85%	3.85%
9th Apr	1944	1033	57.45%		12.77%	2.13%	2.13%
Sources:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/76, WY/6/1/2/77, WY/6/1/2/78 , WY/6/1/2/79 and WY/6/1/2/81.

The following table shows how much the adjuncts used by Younger bounced around during the war. This wasn’t specific to their Milds. Every style used the adjunct of the day. The biggest surprise is that grits were still featuring as late as 1942. Maize disappeared from most UK brews in 1940.

Most breweries went through adjuncts in this order during the war: flaked maize, flaked rice, flaked barley, flaked oats and finally flaked barley again. Younger did things quite differently, using a couple of adjuncts simultaneously – for example, grits and flaked rice – and used a couple I’ve noy encountered elsewhere. Namely chit barley and ground barley. Though the latter I have seen mentioned in other technical sources.

William Younger XXX Ale adjuncts 1939 - 1944
Date	Year	OG	flaked rice	grits	flaked barley	chit barley	ground barley	flaked rye	flaked oat
17th Nov	1939	1037		39.00%
19th Sep	1940	1036	19.81%	16.98%
13th Mar	1941	1035	15.31%	18.37%
9th Dec	1941	1036		16.98%		5.66%
26th Dec	1941	1035		16.98%			8.49%
23rd Jan	1942	1034		18.00%			6.00%
24th Apr	1942	1033		19.15%			6.38%
15th Jul	1942	1033			12.00%
8th Aug	1942	1033			12.00%
11th Dec	1942	1033						11.54%
4th Nov	1943	1033			6.00%				12.00%
9th Nov	1943	1033			19.15%
14th Jan	1943	1033			20.19%
9th Apr	1944	1033			25.53%
Sources:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/76, WY/6/1/2/77, WY/6/1/2/78 , WY/6/1/2/79 and WY/6/1/2/81.