Let's Brew Wednesday - 1889 Harveys Stout

Everyone brewed a Stout in the late 19th century and Harveys was no exception. Porter might have been slowly disappearing, but Stout was still going strong.

And this is a proper Stout, not a Porter masquerading as such. Why do I say that? Because of the gravity. At 1079º, it’s just about getting into Double Stout territory.

There’s a bit more to the grist than many provincial Stouts, which were mostly just pale malt and black malt. Here, there’s also a quantity of crystal malt. But no brown malt, as was normal in London. About 16% of the base malt was made from Smyrna, i.e. Middle Eastern, barley.

The sugar is described as Johnson BK. Guessing that BK stands for “Black”, I’d usually interpret it as No. 4 invert. Except that would leave the colour at over 60 SRM, which seems way too dark. Even with No. 3 invert, it ends up at high end of the expected colour for Stout.

All English hops: Sussex from the 1886 harvest, Kent from 1887 and East Kent from 1888.

At the end of the fermentation details, it says: “Run into Puns”. That is, racked into large casks, presumably for ageing. I’d guess at a minimum of six months secondary conditioning, probably 12 months or more. 

1889 Harveys Stout
pale malt	10.50 lb	63.64%
black malt	1.00 lb	6.06%
crystal malt 60 L	2.00 lb	12.12%
No. 3 invert sugar	3.00 lb	18.18%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 60 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1079
FG	1026
ABV	7.01
Apparent attenuation	67.09%
IBU	49
SRM	41
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	150 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale