Saturday 6 November 2021

Let's Brew - 1892 Barclay Perkins AA

Another brew I’m struggling to define from the mystery box that is the brewing log from Barclay Perkins small plant. Unless I’ve missed something, not a beer that was around for long, this being the only example I have.

Based on the grist and hopping rate. It looks like some sort of Pale Ale. Australian Ale, perhaps? I have seen beers called that in adverts. And there was a large export trade to Australia in the 1890s: 147,014 barrels in 1890, almost a third of all UK beer exports.  And Barclay Perkins definitely exported their Stout to Australia. But that’s just me guessing.

The grist – just pale malt and No. 1 invert sugar – definitely suggests a classy beer. As does the fact that all the hops were from the most recent 1891 season. (This beer was brewed in April.) The hops look like good quality ones, being split evenly between East Kent and Worcester.

I’ve listed the racking gravity as the FG. This looking like a Stock Ale, I’d expect the real FG to have been considerably lower after an extended Brettanomyces secondary fermentation.

1892 Barclay Perkins AA
pale malt 9.50 lb 86.36%
No. 1 invert sugar 1.50 lb 13.64%
Fuggles 120 mins 3.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins 3.00 oz
Goldings dry hops 1.00 oz
OG 1052
FG 1022
ABV 3.97
Apparent attenuation 57.69%
IBU 73
SRM 6
Mash at 151º F
Sparge at 165º F
Boil time 150 minutes
pitching temp 60º F
Yeast Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Some enterprising craft brewer needs to think outside of the box and instead of marketing their modern pale as an India Pale Ale they could call it an Australia Pale Ale.

There are a few out there with the moniker "Australia Pale Ale" but as far as I can tell they're lacking the marketing gloss needed to make it stand out in a crowded field.

They could come up with an equally fanciful made up historical backstory about sheep farmers and convicts, replace the traditional hops with some modern Australian/NZ hops, throw in some kind of bacteria or wild yeast....