William Younger beers in 1884 and 1885

Younger's Abbey Brewery in the 1890s.

I've spent a good bit of the last two weeks extracting information from William Younger's brewing records. Records that I'd been too lazy to go through properly. Until now. Information that I need for "Free!", the book I'm currently working on.

Going through the records for both the Abbey and Holyrood breweries, it became clear how different the beers they brewed were. Holyrood stuck to mostly Pale Ales, along with occasional brews of Strong Ales. And a few brews of Pils. The Abbey Brewery, while it mostly brewed Shilling Ales, Stout and Mild Ales, made pretty much every beer in their range. Other than Pils.

At Holyrood, XP was far and away the most-brewed beer, accounting for well over half of the brews. With most of the rest being XXP.

At Abbey, things were far more diverse, with no one beer dominating. The most frquently brewed were X, 50/-, 60/- and the Stouts S1 and S2. Note the huge range of gravities brewed, from 1031º to 1115º. Few English breweries could have matched that. Nor the 24 different beers brewed at Abbey.

Interested in learning more about these beers? I can stretch out the material to several more posts, if I can be bothered.

William Younger (Holyrood) beers in 1884
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	dry hops (oz / barrel)
S XP	IPA	1055	1014	5.42	74.55%	10.33	2.46	9.90
XP	IPA	1056	1015	5.42	73.21%	8.08	2.76	8.84
XXP	IPA	1062	1015	6.22	75.81%	9.31	3.46	9.44
XXX	Mild	1063	1021	5.56	66.67%	5.45	1.25	4.54
XXXX	Mild	1080	1025	7.28	68.75%	9.07	3.24	11.28
XXXX / 3	Mild	1101	1022	10.45	78.22%	8.38	4.37	17.80
Ext	Pale Ale	1061	1014	6.22	77.05%	15.71	4.35	14.92
S Ext	Pale Ale	1068	1021	6.22	69.12%	15.71	4.68	14.98
PX	Pils	1054	1020	4.50	62.96%	5.82	1.14	0.00
1	Strong Ale	1100	1038	8.20	62.00%	11.08	5.54	14.70
3	Strong Ale	1077	1027	6.61	64.94%	8.57	2.87	9.39
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/11.

 

William Younger (Abbey) beers in 1885
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	dry hops (oz / barrel)
T	Table Beer	1031	1008	3.04	74.19%	6.36	0.78	3.95
50/-	Ale	1037	1011	3.44	70.27%	5.45	0.85	3.69
S 50/-	Ale	1042	1018	3.18	57.14%	3.85	0.45	0.00
B 50/-	Ale	1044	1016	3.70	63.64%	3.85	0.85	3.61
H 60/-	Ale	1041	1014	3.57	65.85%	6.43	1.14	5.67
60/-	Ale	1052	1023	3.84	55.77%	5.00	1.06	0.00
80/-	Ale	1063	1025	5.03	60.32%	5.24	1.39	0.00
100/-	Ale	1075	1036	5.16	52.00%	8.00	1.85	0.00
120/-	Ale	1087	1034	7.01	60.92%	6.23	2.67	0.00
140/-	Ale	1101	1043	7.67	57.43%	8.44	4.61	0.00
160/-	Ale	1115	1050	8.60	56.52%	8.44	5.25	0.00
X	Mild	1048	1012	4.76	75.00%	5.29	1.11	3.36
XX	Mild	1056	1016	5.29	71.43%	6.19	1.48	3.82
XXX	Mild	1071	1024	6.22	66.20%	7.69	2.45	4.71
XXXX	Stock Ale	1079	1020	7.81	74.68%	7.42	2.97	9.91
P	Pale Ale	1047	1009	5.03	80.85%	8.82	1.73	3.14
XP	IPA	1054	1013	5.42	75.93%	11.50	2.84	9.28
XP Scotch	Pale Ale	1055	1016	5.16	70.91%	11.00	2.72	9.48
DBS	Stout	1073	1025	6.35	65.75%	15.86	5.51	11.50
S1	Stout	1074	1034	5.29	54.05%	1.43	0.45	0.00
S2	Stout	1065	1028	4.89	56.92%	1.60	0.39	0.00
1	Strong Ale	1106	1035	9.39	66.98%	12.05	6.39	15.04
2	Strong Ale	1091	1030	8.07	67.03%	9.76	4.80	11.42
3	Strong Ale	1081	1029	6.88	64.20%	9.12	3.46	9.12
3 pale	Strong Ale	1077	1024	7.01	68.83%	9.33	3.37	9.25
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/31.