Tuesday, 3 February 2026

Chapman grists in 1880

A Chapman Pale Ale cask label with the text "Please to cork and spile the cask as soon as empty".
Time for the ingredients. Of which there aren’t all that many.

We’ll begin with the malts.  Only three of them. And two of those, black and crystal malt, only appear in the Stout. All the other beers only contain base pale malt.

It’s an interesting Stout grist. Usually a three-malt Stout grist would be pale, brown and black malt. While here it’s pale, black and crystal malt. With quite a lot of the latter. Not sure that I’ve ever seen a grist quite like it.

Total malt content averages out at 72%.  Which is on the low side. On the other hand, there are no adjuncts. But the sugar content is high. At 33%, the proportion in the two Mild Ales was particularly high. 

Chapman grists in 1880
Beer Style pale malt black malt crystal malt total malt fructose Pale Ref. total sugar
X Mild 66.67%     66.67%   33.33% 33.33%
XX Mild 66.67%     66.67%   33.33% 33.33%
XXX Stock Ale 78.95%     78.95% 21.05%   21.05%
AK Pale Ale 77.14%     77.14% 22.86%   22.86%
PA Pale Ale 69.23%     69.23% 30.77%   30.77%
S Stout 53.33% 6.67% 13.33% 73.33%   26.67% 26.67%
  Average       72.00%     28.00%
Source:
Chapman brewing record.

 

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does the brewing log really say fructose?

A Brew Rat said...

What is "pale ref."?

Ron Pattinson said...

It says "laevulose" which is on old name for fructose.

Ron Pattinson said...

A type of pale sugar.

Anonymous said...

Pale ref is probably pale refiners' syrup, i.e. the "last runnings" from the production of crystal sugar. If so, that would be something like liquid demerara sugar. (The boiled and lightly caramelized version of refiners' syrup is known as golden syrup.)

Anonymous said...

Laevulose is also yet another term for invert sugar, i.e. "left-side sugar". Invert sugar reflects the light to the left when using a polarimeter, as opposed to sucrose, hence the term inverted.
Pure fructose most certainly wasn't available commercially in the 19th century anyway. That's a relatively modern thing involving a special enzyme.