Saturday 15 July 2023

Let's Brew - 1918 Courage Stout

Not a recipe to plug my last book. Instead, one from my next book. Which is very nearly done. Finally. The recipes have taken forever. Over 270 of them.
 
Imperial Stout bowed out in 1915, but Double Stout made it through to early 1918. And with the gravity only whittled down a little to 1064º. But that all changed after April that year, when new draconian restrictions were imposed on brewing.

The result of which was this Stout. 1036º might seem pretty feeble. But with a brewer’s beers having to average 1030º, they had to brew plenty of weaker beer to be able to make a beer this “strong”. And that was their X Mild Ale, which was just 1022º.

The recipe remains generally the same as in 1914. There’s only about half the amount of brown malt, with the base malt boosted accordingly, While the black malt and sugar content are around the same. The latter being described as black invert, which I’ve assumed is something like No. 4 invert.

Quite a different mashing scheme was employed. It kicked off the same was with an infusion and an underlet. But then there were four sparges rather than two.

action barrels strike heat mash heat mins stood
mash 166 159º F 147º F  
underlet 21 172º F 158º F 90
sparge 1 280 168º F    
sparge 2 220 165º F    
sparge 3 220 160º F    
sparge 4 100 159º F    


Ancient is how I would describe the hops. Being English from the 1912 and 1914 harvests and Poperinge from 1914. So, all pre-war hops. 

1918 Courage Stout
pale malt 6.00 lb 73.26%
brown malt 0.75 lb 9.16%
black malt 0.75 lb 9.16%
No. 4 invert sugar 0.50 lb 6.11%
caramel 500 SRM 0.19 lb 2.32%
Strisslespalt 120 min 0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 min 0.50 oz
Fuggles 30 min 0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.25 oz
OG 1036
FG 1008
ABV 3.70
Apparent attenuation 77.78%
IBU 19
SRM 35
Mash at 152º F
Sparge at 165º F
Boil time 120 minutes
pitching temp 60º F
Yeast Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

A beer that clearly lost its bite. Was it milk or dry stout Ron.
Oscar

Ron Pattinson said...

Oscar,

neither. It was a London Stout.

Anonymous said...

Thanks so a London brewed dry stout thanks.
Oscar

Ron Pattinson said...

Oscar,

the concept of dry Stout is much, much later. This is just a London Stout.

Anonymous said...

Ah thanks.
Oscar