Flying again

“Are you crazy? Another trip?”

“Yes, Dolores. I need the XP points.”

“What?”

“With KLM. I need three more XP points to keep my gold status.”

“You’re travelling just for that?”

“And to get some research in. I’m going to an archive.”

I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to photograph some more brewing records. I can never have too many of those. In particular. Records from the period 1880 to 1914. For the book I’m currently writing.

It’s not going to be a long trip. I won’t be in the UK for much over 24 hours. And six of those will be in the archive.

With my flight not until 4 PM, it’s a fairly relaxed start. Which is how I prefer it. There’s no-one to wave me off when I leave. Dolores and Alexei are at work. Andrew is still in bed.

There’s a lot of car traffic at Schiphol. Which has me worrying a bit. Needlessly. It’s pretty quiet at both security and passport control. No duty-free today. So it’s straight to the lounge.

Where it’s whisky time again. I’m loath to break with tradition. Brace of whiskies it is.

The last few times I’ve been in the KLM non-Schengen lounge, the warm food hasn’t been bad. Much better than the slop on their planes. Today the trend continues with zuurvlees. A tasty stew.

I shouldn’t have to far to walk. E is one of the closest piers to the lounge. And the display says that it’s a 3-minute walk to the gate. Wary of what happened last time, I head for the gate 40 minutes before the departure time.

Checking the gate hasn’t changed on my way to E pier, the display now says it’s a 12-minute walk. Best not doddle.

I really like the way that the one gate where you’re taken by bus to your plane, is right at the end of the pier. You walk all the way there, just to get on a bus. Perfect.

The flight is full, but thankfully short. With no checked luggage, I’m free as soon as I get through immigration. Which is just a short 10 km walk down a dingy corridor away. A really dismal welcome to the country.

St. Pancras is a long way by tube. About an hour. Always fun with luggage. As the carriage gets fuller and fuller the closer you get to central London. Luckily, I’ve only a small rucksack today.

I realise that I haven’t told you where I’m headed. Maidstone. And the Kent archives. I spent some time looking for regional archives. Preferably, where there were records from multiple breweries. And that I could get to relatively easily.

Kent Archives in Maidstone, turns out to have long sets from both Fremlin and George Beer & Rigden. Plus a couple of other things.

Because getting there from London by train isn’t difficult, Maidstone seems an easy destination to reach. It takes about 2.5 hours from Heathrow to Maidstone. On a tube and then two overground trains.

The first train, a fast Javelin, is packed when we leave St. Pancras. The second, a clanky suburban train from Strood, is much quieter.

I’ve come to Maidstone West station because it’s closer to my hotel than Maidstone East. Sadly, it’s uphill. And I really can’t be doing with hills. Especially with luggage, however light that might be.

My original plan was to hit Spoons and Tesco. But I’m feeling a bit knacked. Just Tesco, then. By Uber. What could be simpler?

Lots, it turns out. Uber keeps giving me stupid pickup points. Then can’t find me a driver. Eventually, one does roll up.

Loaded up with crisps, sandwiches and hotel whisky, it’s time to try my luck with Uber again. A 25-minute wait. What a fucking joke. I could walk it quicker than that. So I do. Remembering that I saw a couple of pubs on the way.

The first, the Royal Albion looks deserted. When I get to the door, I understand why. It’s closed. Despite all the lights being on inside.

Drakes, the other pub on the way, is open. And has Harveys Best. Unfortunately, there’s also a jam session. Which I fear is going to damage my hearing. The only way to get away from it, is to leave. After just one pint.

Up the hill to my hotel. Walking along the busy main roads. Fuck there’s a lot of cars here. They make walking such fun.

The hotel doesn’t have ITV +1. I only catch the last 10 minutes of Latvia against England. Damn.

Still, there is the hotel whisky to put me to sleep.



Drakes
9 Fairmeadow, 
Maidstone ME14 1JP.
https://drakescorkandcaskmaidstone.co.uk/
 

Harvey hops in 1889

Inevitably, we’ve ended up at the hops Harvey employed. What’s slightly unusual is that they are all English. And mostly pretty local, Lewes being in Sussex and Kent in the neighbouring country to the East.

That’s slightly unusual. Most brewers used some foreign hops, simply because there were too few English hops to satisfy demand.

There’s nothing stupidly old. Most were either from the current season or the one before it. With only the Sussex hops being two seasons old

Harvey currently sources all its hops from Sussex. At least they did when I visited the brewery a couple of years ago. 

Harvey hops in 1889
Beer	Style	OG	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3
X	Mild	1058.2	East Kent 1887	East Kent 1888
XXX	Mild	1075.3	East Kent 1887	East Kent 1888
PA	Pale Ale	1066.5	Worcester 1888
SB	Stock Ale	1078.9	Kent 1888	East Kent 1887
Stout	Stout	1078.7	Sussex 1886	Kent 1887	East Kent 1888
Source:
Harvey brewing record held at the East Sussex Record Office, document number BBR 2/1/3.

Harvey grists in 1889

Let’s have a look at the ingredients contained in these beers.

Unsurprisingly, all have a base of pale malt. Most made from English malt, but around 15% from Middle Eastern Smyrna barley.

Only the Stout has any other malt than the base. That was fairly typical. Sometimes a bit of crystal turns up in Mild Ales, other than that, it’s base malt all the way. The grist is more complicated than in many provincial Stouts, having a fair bit of crystal malt in addition to black.

Harvey’s sugar usage was quite varied, with four different sugars across their five beers. Pale Ale gets, as you would expect, No. 1 invert. X Ale receives No. 3 invert. While XXX and SB were treated to No. 3 invert. Not sure what the BK was which was employed in the Stout. Presumably something dark.

At between 15% and 24%, the sugar content is on the high side. Note that the expensive Pale Ale contained the most sugar. This was pretty common, as brewers wanted to keep the colour and body as light as possible. 

Harvey grists in 1889
Beer	Style	OG	pale malt	black malt	crystal malt	no. 1 sugar	no. 2 sugar	no. 3 sugar	BK
X	Mild	1058.2	84.56%				15.44%
XXX	Mild	1075.3	83.86%					16.14%
PA	Pale Ale	1066.5	75.90%			24.10%
SB	Stock Ale	1078.9	82.56%					17.44%
Stout	Stout	1078.7	65.48%	6.09%	12.18%				16.24%
Source:
Harvey brewing record held at the East Sussex Record Office, document number BBR 2/1/3.

Harvey beers in 1889

By late 19th-century standards, Harvey had quite a limited range of beers. Just five in total. A couple of Mild Ales, and one each of Pale Ale, Stock Ale and Stout.

The biggest surprise is the absence of any Running Bitter or Light Pale Ale. These were all the rage in the second half of the 19th century and were a pretty standard past of most breweries’ ranges.

Starting with the Milds, they both have a pretty decent gravity. Surprisingly strong for provincial beers. All the beers are pretty strong, for that matter. Averaging over 1070º. I’m not 100% certain that XXX was a Mild. It could also have been an Old Ale. However, given the rate of hopping, my guess would be Mild.

The hopping rate is a little lower than in London, where it was usually 6 – 8 lbs per quarter for X Ale. Not a huge difference, really.

Harvey Pale Ale looks like a classic Stock Pale Ale to me. With its OG in the mid-1060ºs and high level of hopping. As a Stock Ale, it would have been matured for around a year. Possibly even more. Which, obviously, would have reduced the FG considerably. My guess is that, when sold, the apparent attenuation would have been over 89%.

I’m not certain of what “SB” stands for. It could be “Stock Beer” or possibly “Strong Beer”. Not that it matters too much, as these labels were used pretty arbitrarily. It’s strong and it’s dark. What else do you need to know? Oh, it’s reasonably, but not excessively hopped.

SB isn’t hugely different from XXX. They are a similar strength and colour. The significant difference being in the hopping.

Finally, we come to the Stout. Which is a pretty decent strength, clocking in stronger than a London Single Stout. The hopping rate is lower than in London, where somewhere around 10 lbs per quarter 336 lbs)  of malt was typical. 

Harvey beers in 1889
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	Pitch temp
X	Mild	1058.2	1015.0	5.72	74.29%	5.68	1.46	58º F
XXX	Mild	1075.3	1020.8	7.22	72.43%	6.66	2.39	57.75º F
PA	Pale Ale	1066.5	1020.2	6.12	69.58%	12.90	3.96	58.25º F
SB	Stock Ale	1078.9	1018.8	7.95	76.14%	9.02	3.21	58º F
Stout	Stout	1078.7	1026.3	6.93	66.55%	6.65	2.43	58º F
Source
Harvey brewing record held at the East Sussex Record Office, document number BBR 2/1/3.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1889 Harveys Stout

Everyone brewed a Stout in the late 19th century and Harveys was no exception. Porter might have been slowly disappearing, but Stout was still going strong.

And this is a proper Stout, not a Porter masquerading as such. Why do I say that? Because of the gravity. At 1079º, it’s just about getting into Double Stout territory.

There’s a bit more to the grist than many provincial Stouts, which were mostly just pale malt and black malt. Here, there’s also a quantity of crystal malt. But no brown malt, as was normal in London. About 16% of the base malt was made from Smyrna, i.e. Middle Eastern, barley.

The sugar is described as Johnson BK. Guessing that BK stands for “Black”, I’d usually interpret it as No. 4 invert. Except that would leave the colour at over 60 SRM, which seems way too dark. Even with No. 3 invert, it ends up at high end of the expected colour for Stout.

All English hops: Sussex from the 1886 harvest, Kent from 1887 and East Kent from 1888.

At the end of the fermentation details, it says: “Run into Puns”. That is, racked into large casks, presumably for ageing. I’d guess at a minimum of six months secondary conditioning, probably 12 months or more. 

1889 Harveys Stout
pale malt	10.50 lb	63.64%
black malt	1.00 lb	6.06%
crystal malt 60 L	2.00 lb	12.12%
No. 3 invert sugar	3.00 lb	18.18%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 60 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1079
FG	1026
ABV	7.01
Apparent attenuation	67.09%
IBU	49
SRM	41
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	150 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

Let's Brew - 1889 Harveys SB

I’m pretty sure that SB stands for Stock Beer. Pretty sure, but not certain. It certainly has the characteristics I’d expect of a Stock Ale.

Why is that? Because it looks very much like the strongest Mild Ale, XXX. It’s a few points higher in gravity, but the grist is the same. Same two elements – pale malt and No. 3 invert sugar – in the same proportions.

The difference lies in the hopping rate which was 35% higher in SB. Which is what you would expect in a beer intended to undergo a long fermentation. A minimum of 12 months, would be my guess. Not sure what the vessels used in this process were. Possibly trade casks. Or some wort of large r casks. There’s no indication in the brewing record, sadly.

Just two types of English hops, East Kent from the 1887 harvest and Kent from 1888. I’ve guessed that the former were Goldings and the latter Fuggles. 

1889 Harveys SB
pale malt	13.75 lb	83.33%
No. 3 invert sugar	2.75 lb	16.67%
Fuggles 95 mins	2.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	2.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	2.00 oz
OG	1079
FG	1019
ABV	7.94
Apparent attenuation	75.95%
IBU	58
SRM	17
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	95 minutes
pitching temp	58º F
Yeast	White Labs WLP025 Southwold

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1889 Harveys Pale Ale

Pale Ale clearly wasn’t very important for Harveys. They only had the one – a full-strength version – and no Light Bitter. Which is quite unusual for this late in the 19th century.

The quantities were tiny, too. Over a period of 5 months, it was brewed just three times. In batches of around 25 barrels. A couple of hundred barrels over a year, at most. Quite a contrast to today.

At 1067º, it looks to me like a Stock Pale Ale. “Run into Puns [puncheons]” it says at the bottom of the fermentation record. A puncheon being a large cask. Too large a cask to be sent out to pubs.

The grist has very little to it. A single type of English pale malt and No. 1 invert sugar. That’s it. Not a great deal to discuss there.

There’s little more to talk about with the hops. Worcester from the 1888 crop. All in all, it’s a very simple recipe.

My guess would be a minimum of 9 months, probably more than 12 months of ageing.  

1889 Harveys Pale Ale
pale malt	10.00 lb	76.92%
No. 1 invert sugar	3.00 lb	23.08%
Fuggles 120 mins	2.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	2.50 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	2.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	1.00 oz
OG	1067
FG	1020
ABV	6.22
Apparent attenuation	70.15%
IBU	80
SRM	8
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	58.25º F
Yeast	White Labs WLP025 Southwold

Let's Brew - 1889 Harveys XXX Ale

The late 19th century saw a reduction in the number of X Ales brewed by many breweries. Breaking down the standard X to XXXX set.

In the case of Harveys, this meant the disappearance of XX and XXXX. Leaving just X and XXX. Unsurprisingly, XXX was a good bit stronger than X. And way stronger than any modern Mild Ale at over 7% ABV.

There’s only base malt, but there are two types of it. One made from English barley, the other from Smyrna barley. The big difference from X Ale is the use of No. 3 rather than No. 2 invert sugar. Which explains the much darker colour. Much closer to that of modern Mild.

Two types of hops were employed, both East Kent, from the 1887 and 1888 crops.

The mashing temperatures for all of Harveys beers is a guess. In the brewing records they are in code.

1889 Harveys XXX Ale
pale malt	13.25 lb	84.13%
No. 3 invert sugar	2.5 lb	15.87%
Fuggles 95 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 60 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
OG	1075
FG	1021
ABV	7.14
Apparent attenuation	72.00%
IBU	49
SRM	16
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	95 minutes
pitching temp	57.5º F
Yeast	White Labs WLP025 Southwold

 

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1889 Harveys X Ale

We’re outside the major cities again with Harveys. Not exactly rurally based, but a fairly small market town.

The surprise here is that the base-level Mild Ale, X Ale, has a similar gravity to a London Mild. And is a good bit stronger than other small-town X Ales from Adnams and Hancock. Why is this? Perhaps because, being not that far from London, they were in direct competition with brewers from the capital.

There’s no malt other than pale base malt. Though there were three types of that: two made from English barley and one from Smyrna, i.e., Middle Eastern, barley. Nothing particularly unusual in that, given that the UK couldn’t grow enough malting barley to service the brewing industry.

The only other element in the grist is No. 2 invert sugar. Which darkens the beer a little, while still leaving it well short of a modern Dark Mild.

The hops, in contrast to the malt, were all English. Specifically, Kent from the 1888 harvest and East Kent from 1887 and 1888.

1889 Harveys X Ale
pale malt	10.25 lb	85.42%
No. 2 invert sugar	1.75 lb	14.58%
Fuggles 85 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 60 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.00 oz
OG	1058
FG	1014
ABV	5.82
Apparent attenuation	75.86%
IBU	35
SRM	9
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	85 minutes
pitching temp	57.5º F
Yeast	White Labs WLP025 Southwold

 

Archive run

I'm just back from a short London trip. Basically an archive run. Though I did meet up up with a few people for a beer or two. I'm not going to visit London without a trip to the Royal Oak.

Now the London Metropolitan Archives doesn't open on Fridays, it rules out the most obvious option, which woulg be to fly in Thursday evening and back again on Saturday. Instead, I did Saturday to Monday.

All was going well until Monday morning. When I woke up around 4 AM feeling shit. Not to worry. What's the worst it could be? Yes, there had been loads of people in face masks at Schiphol and Heathrow. But I'm sure it takes the corona virus longer than a day or two to incubate.

Then I remembered: I was innoculated against yellow fever last week. They warned me I might have some flu-like symptoms. Let's hope that's what it is.

Feeling exhausted isn't the best condition for an archive blitz. It involves a lot of standing and snapping. Despite everything, I still managed 600 photos in three hours. Which is about par for the course.

I was there for something quite specific.The later WW II records of Truman's Burton brewery. When I startred writing Truman resipes for my next book, I noticed how much was missing. Too much, really. 1941, 1942, 1944, 1945 and 1946. Especially the first two, as those were the years when the interesting stuff happened.

As I knew I'd have time for more, I opted to get in some research for my book after next. Which consisted of looking at more Truman's records. Lots of fun when you feel like you might vomit or faint at any moment.

I also did a few Whitbread's. Because I noticed I was two away from the full set. But a couple of other records on account of my Birthday Home Brew business. Recently someone asked for a recipe from 1958. I didn't have one for the specific date. So I suggested I could harvest a recipe of twop while in the archive.

Now I just have to transcribe all the information into my spreadsheet.  Which will be a real pleasure, given how lovely Truman brewers; handwriting was. Almost as good as mine.

Harvey's beers in 1889

I've already extracted the details from the Harvey's brewing records which fell into my hands.

How this Harvey's brewing book ended up in the Beards archive is also becoming clearer. Mr. Miles Jenner, head brewers at Harvey's, tells me that Henry John Barrett served an apprenticeship at Harvery's and then later went on to be head brewer at Beards. This looks like it was his personal brewing book.

Moving onto the beeers themsleves, it's quite a small range. Two Milds, a Stock Ale a Pale Ale and a Stout. Even for a small-town brewery, that's pretty minimal. By this late, most breweries would have brewed multiple Stouts and probably a Light Pale Ale (1045-1050º).

All the beers are around the same strength as London equivalents, which slightly surprised me. I'm accustomed to provincial beers being weaker. You can see from the two tables below that there's a very close sorrelatioon between the graities of Harvey and Barclay Perkins.

A couple of the Harvey's beers - SB and Stout - have slightly lower hopping rates. But PA and X have roughly similar rates to the Barclay Perkins beers of the same class.

Interestingly, the rate of attenuation is generally a bit higher in the Harvey's beers.

Harvey's beers in 1889
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1057.6	1013.9	5.79	75.96%	5.70	1.47
XXX	Mild	1075.3	1020.8	7.22	72.43%	6.66	2.39
SB	Stock Ale	1078.9	1018.8	7.95	76.14%	9.02	3.21
PA	Pale Ale	1066.5	1020.2	6.12	69.58%	12.90	3.96
Stout	Stout	1078.7	1026.3	6.93	66.55%	6.65	2.43
Source:
Harvey brewing record held at the East Sussex Record Office, document number BBR 2/1/3.

Barclay Perkins beers 1891 - 1892
Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
X	Mild	1057.0	1016.6	5.34	70.84%	5.95	1.47
KK	Stock Ale	1074.0	1021.1	7.00	71.55%	14.22	4.61
PA	Pale Ale	1063.0	1021.1	5.55	66.58%	12.46	3.03
BS	Stout	1077.0	1027.0	6.61	64.94%	8.56	2.98
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/1/587 and ACC/2305/1/588.

Let's Brew - 1889 Harvey X

Here’s a recipe I never thought I’d write. A Harvey’s beer from before WW I. As it was thought none of their brewing records from this period had survived. It appears that at least one brewing book has survived, just miscataloged as being from another Lewes brewery, Beard.

It doesn’t contain a huge number of different beers. Two Milds, a Stock Ale, a Pale Ale and a Stout. Quite a small range for a Victorian brewer. Then again, they weren’t that large an operation. The maximum brew length was around 50 barrels. They couldn’t have been brewing more than around 10,000 barrels a year.

If you had asked me to guess the gravity of this beer, I’d have said 1050º at the absolute maximum, and more likely 1045º. Why? Because beers tended to be weaker outside London. In 1889, both Barclay Perkins and Whitbread X Ale were 1058º. Or about the same strength as Harvey X.

There’s nothing very complicated about the recipe. It’s just pale malt and invert sugar. Interestingly, it’s No. 2 rather than the No. 3 invert you might expect. Even so, No. 2 is enough to change the colour of the finished beer to what I would call semi-dark. About 20% of the base malt is described as “Smyrna”, that is from the Middle East.

Unusually for the late Victorian period, when huge quantities were being imported, all the hops are English. A combination of Kent from the 1888 harvest and East Kent from 1887 and 1888.

At the bottom of the fermentation chart it says “Run into Puns”. Puns, I assume, standing for puncheons. At 84 gallons, those are pretty large casks. Not usually the sort of size you’d be delivering to pubs.

1889 Harvey X
pale malt	10.00 lb	83.33%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.00 lb	16.67%
Fuggles 85 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1057.5
FG	1014
ABV	5.75
Apparent attenuation	75.65%
IBU	29
SRM	10
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	85 minutes
pitching temp	57.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1332 Northwest ale

Miscatalogued records

Archives aren't perfect. Especially when it comes to cataloguing specialised material, such as brewing records.

Which makes searching for brewing records a sometimes frustrating task. What has this particular archive called them? Brewing books? Brewing journals? Something else entirely? It necessitates a good bit of rumbling around in the catalogue, making sure you've covered all the possibilities.

Then there's the example of the Whitbread brewing records. Where the catalogue has the wrong years for several of the brewing books. I think I'm the only person who has a correct catalogue of them. I suppose I should really have told the archivists.

A third problem is when records are attributed to the wrong company. For years I believed that the earliest IPA brewing log I had was 1837 from Reid. Until I saw some records from the 1820s which were in a completely different format. Which was identical to the format of Reid's 1840s logs. Clearly the 1837 records were from a different brewery. Which, I don't really know. I'm guessing Combe, as the material originated from Watney, Combe, Reid.

Today I came across another example of incorrect attribution. Though I'm scratching my head as to how it could have occurred. It's a brewing book which supposedly comes from Beard's of Lewes.  Yet it has this in the inside cover:

Not only does it say "Harvey & Son" at the top of the page, it also says "Bridge Wharf Brewery", which is the name of the Harvey's brewery.

Has anyone ever looked at this record properly before? You have to wonder.

Random English labels

I'm afraid you're not even going to get some of my pathetic sketches this time. Just the briefest of bullshit and then some pretty labels.

The reason? I've another trip coming up. And I need to bash out some quick posts.

The reason I have so many fresh labels is another matter. I've been making a real effort to get through my floor beers. That's the beers clogging up the living room floor. It's incredible how quickly it can change from just a couple to 150. I've no idea how that can happen. It's almost as if they're breeding.

Below are labels from some of the English beers in the pile I've finished off. It's stuff I picked up on a couple of my UK trips. To be honest, I have trouble remembering all the different trips. Thus year will be even worse. Atlanta and Asheville later this week. Edinburgh a week or so after I return from that. Sheffield at the end of June. Berlin and Newark in August. Washington DC in September, maybe. Chile in October. I think that's about all I currently have planned.

Incidentally, despite my already crzay schedule, if you're a brewer or home brewer club in Europe and would like to host a Macbeth event, get in touch. I'm sure I can squeeze the odd weekend in.