London Burton Ale malts 1880 - 1899

We should take a look at the ingredients. Loads? Not really. I could even have squeezed them into one table. Instead, I’ve strung them out into a massive two tables.

No example contained more than two malts. And a couple just one.

Whitbread’s KK stands out in having SA rather than pale malt as its base. SA malt produced more less-readily fermentable sugars, which was handy when you wanted to leave plenty of food for the Brettanomyces in a secondary fermentation.

Only two coloured malts poke their heads out: crystal and brown malt. The latter is a very London thing. Most breweries wouldn’t have had it lying around. Only in London, where it was still an essential ingredient in Porter and Stout.

Quite a lot of malt, generally. Almost 85%, on average. But these were expensive beers. Where you would expect less skimping on ingredients.

London Burton Ale malts 1880 - 1899
Year	Brewer	Beer	pale malt	SA malt	brown malt	crystal malt	total malt
1892	Barclay Perkins	KK	69.12%			4.56%	73.68%
1881	Whitbread	KK		84.75%			84.75%
1897	Fullers	XXK	76.64%		2.55%		79.20%
1887	Truman (Burton)	C5 R	93.51%				93.51%
1887	Truman (Burton)	S5	92.31%				92.31%
	Average						84.69%
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/1/587.
Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/01/047.
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery.
Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/BUR/11.