Youngs beers in 1943

Let’s jump a couple of years forward and see what things are like at Youngs in the middle of the war. How, exactly, had their beers changed?

The most obvious change is that three beers have been dropped: Porter, Stout and XXXX. The last isn't much of a surprise. The strongest beers were some of the first to disappear. The first isn't a great shock, either. All London brewers discontinued their Porters in the early war years.

But Stout, that's another matter. At the time, it was still a fairly standard draught beer in London. It's really odd for a London brewery to have no Black Beer in their portfolio. In fact, it was unusual for any English brewery to not brew a Stout.

Let's look at the remaining beers in more detail. Kicking off with the gravities. Which, unsurprisingly, have been reduced since 1940. Though the reduction was very inconsistent across the different beers.

The biggest fall was in PAB and XXX. In both cases around 15%. AX Ale was a little behind with a 12% drop. Interestingly, the smallest reductions were in PA, one of the strongest beers, and A, one of weakest. In the latter case, there's a pretty obvious reason. It didn't have anywhere further to go. Because of the tax system, 1027º was effectively the lowest economic gravity. You could brew a weaker beer, but you'd have to pay the tax for a beer of 1027º.

I'm not quite so sure why PA should have got off so lightly. Interestingly, after falling 1040º in 1942, the gravity was raised again in early 1943 to 1042.7º. Which is weird. The gravities of beers very rarely increased during the war.

The rates of attenuation are pretty similar to in 1940. Around 80% for the Mild Ales, 75% for the Pale Ales, 68% for XXX. Which means that The ABVs have fallen in line with the gravity drop. Though the two strongest - PA and XXX - are still both over 4%. Which was a pretty decent strength for this stage of the war.

There's also been a significant reduction in the hopping rates. In the case of the Mild Ales, it's fallen from 6 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt to 4.5 lbs. For the Pale Ales, the reduction is from 7 lbs per quarter to 5.5 lbs. 

Youngs beers in 1943
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
A	Mild	1026.8	1005.5	2.81	79.33%	4.41	0.51
X	Mild	1029.9	1005.3	3.26	82.40%	4.40	0.57
PAB	Pale Ale	1032.9	1008.3	3.25	74.74%	5.56	0.74
PA	Pale Ale	1042.7	1011.1	4.18	74.05%	5.56	0.96
XXX	Strong Ale	1045.9	1015.5	4.02	66.20%	4.54	0.89
Source:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/12.

 

Youngs beers gravity changes 1940 - 1943
Beer	Style	1940	1943	% drop
A	Mild	1029	1026.8	7.59%
X	Mild	1034	1029.9	12.06%
PAB	Pale Ale	1039	1032.9	15.64%
PA	Pale Ale	1047	1042.7	9.15%
XXX	Strong Ale	1055	1045.9	16.55%
	Average			12.20%
Sources:
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/9.
Young's brewing record held at Battersea Library, document number YO/RE/1/12.