The proportion of No. 2 used is pretty high. Between 15% and 20%. That’s about as much as you ever see. What’s surprising, is that in most cases it’s combined with another sugar. One we’ll be looking at next, dectro-maltose.
More than half the beers also contain some of this sugar. All the Pales Ales, other than H, the weakest. Not being 100% fermentable, I always assume that it’s there to add body.
Something simply escribed as “cane” seems to operate in the place of No. 2 in some beers. I guess that it means some sort of raw cane sugar rather than pure sucrose.
The final type is caramel. Small quantities destined for the Black Beers, Porter, Cooper and Double Stout.
Between 20% and 25% is a lot of sugar. In everything other than the Pilsener. They sure did love their sugar.
| Fremlin sugars in 1897 | ||||||
| Beer | Style | no. 2 sugar | cane | dextro-maltose | caramel | total sugar |
| X | Mild | 23.53% | 23.53% | |||
| H | Pale Ale | 22.00% | 22.00% | |||
| BA | Pale Ale | 18.60% | 4.65% | 23.26% | ||
| BA C | Pale Ale | 15.69% | 7.84% | 23.53% | ||
| BA L | Pale Ale | 16.67% | 8.33% | 25.00% | ||
| BB | Pale Ale | 17.65% | 5.88% | 23.53% | ||
| BB L | Pale Ale | 16.67% | 8.33% | 25.00% | ||
| PA | Pale Ale | 15.69% | 7.84% | 23.53% | ||
| PA L | Pale Ale | 20.00% | 8.00% | 28.00% | ||
| IPA | IPA | 15.69% | 7.84% | 23.53% | ||
| Pilsener | Pilsener | 0.00% | ||||
| P | Porter | 24.39% | 2.44% | 26.83% | ||
| Cooper | Porter | 24.49% | 2.04% | 26.53% | ||
| DS | Stout | 18.93% | 1.18% | 20.12% | ||
| Source: | ||||||
| Fremlin brewing record held at the Kent Archives, document number U3555/2/F/Bx2/1/22. | ||||||
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4 comments:
Dextro-maltose is an interesting feature, but I guess it makes sense to prevent the beers from becoming thin during aging. If they were aged, that is?
There must certainly have been a noticable molasses character in all of those beers.
It seems reasonable to think that cane sugar would be a cheaper substitute for invert; is that reflected in the beer prices?
Seems a roundabout way of doing things, first add sugar to thin the beer out but use a less fermentable one to stop it getting too thin. Why not just use less sugar?
I suppose the sugar was there for flavour, stability and/or superstitious reasons. A quote from William Garton (inventor and manufacturer of brewing sugar) himself on the topic of invert sugar in 1876:
"[...] in consequence of its highly vinous and fermentable character, and the absence of dextrine, the malt used in conjunction with it has to be manipulated in such a way as to retain a larger proportion of dextrine than is usually left by the ordinary methods of brewing, and difficulties arise in effecting this result in some breweries, and the beer produced has in some cases too sweet a flavour, and in others it attenuates too freely." He indeed goes on to recommend blending in dextrin syrup with the sugar to solve this problem.
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