This was part of big parti-gyle of Shilling Ales, consisting of 100/-, 54/- M, 80/-, 60/- B and 40/- B. Though for this beer I’ve used a different brew from the preceding Shilling Ales. Just to demonstrate variations in the basic recipe.
This time, instead of a large quantity of high-dried malt providing the colour, it’s a small amount of black malt. Which makes the colour rather darker. And must have resulted in a rather different flavour, with some background roastiness.
The hops were Californian from the 1883 harvest and Alsace from 1884. A low hopping rate leaves the beer with a fairly modest bitterness level of under 30 IBU (calculated).
| 1885 Thomas Usher 80/- | ||
| pale malt | 11.25 lb | 89.11% |
| black malt | 0.25 lb | 1.98% |
| No. 2 invert sugar | 1.125 lb | 8.91% |
| Cluster 120 min | 1.00 oz | |
| Strisselspalt 30 min | 1.00 oz | |
| Goldings dry hops | 0.25 oz | |
| OG | 1058 | |
| FG | 1025 | |
| ABV | 4.37 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 56.90% | |
| IBU | 28 | |
| SRM | 15 | |
| Mash at | 151º F | |
| Sparge at | 175º F | |
| Boil time | 120 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 60º F | |
| Yeast | WLP028 Edinburgh Ale | |
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4 comments:
I've always been under the impression that the shilling system was based on the duty placed in shillings on a barrel and therefore dependent on the strength of the beer.
So in this case what was the reason for the shilling labels to be all over the place?
If I were to homebrew this recipe, what is the trick to acheiving 57% attenuation? Cold crashing before fermentation is complete? Thanks.
Yes. I think that's what Usher did.
It wasn’t the duty, it was the price of a barrel. That is clear from the records. We know the rates of duty during the 19th century and it wasn't anything like 80s a barrel (more like 6s). And although there might seem to be a big gap between 80/- and 54/-, when you do the sums (12d in a shilling and 288 pints in a barrel) it’s only about a penny a pint difference.
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