Scottish Export/80/- boiling and fermentation in the 1950s

You won't have to put up with this much longer. I'll be back from my Canada trip in a couple of days. Then you'll be blasted with travel posts for a couple of weeks.

Processes today. Starting with boiling.

Unfortunately, most of the breweries couldn't be arsed to record the boiling time. Which is really annoying. The William Younger's records have a column for the boiling time. They just haven't filled it in.

The two breweries that didt bother don't reveal anything particularly unusual.90 to 120 minutes is pretty typical. The only thing that I find slightly surprising is that there were three boils at Robert Younger. And that all were of the same length. That's about all I have to say on the topic of boiling.

On to fermentation. Lots more details there, thankfully.

There's not too much variation in pitching temperatures: 60º F to 62.5º F. Averaging just under 61º F. Which is pretty normal stuff. I consider 60º F to be the "standard" pitching temperature.

Maximum temperatures are another matter. They're all over the place. From 65.5º F to 74.5º F. Drybrough Export only increased by 4º F, while Bernard's rose 14.5 º F. Quite a difference.

Oddly enough, those two were also the beers with the shortest fermentation times, just five days. I would have expected the fermentation that ran hotter to be quicker. All the other beers took seven days. 

Scottish Export/80/- boiling and fermentation in the 1950s
Year	Brewer	Beer	boil time (hours)			Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)
1957	Robert Younger	80/-	2	2	2	60º F	68º F	7
1958	Wm Younger	Export				60º F	73.5º F	7
1958	Bernard	Pale 1/4	1.75			60.5º F	74.5º F	5
1957	Maclay	Export				62.5º F	70º F	7
1956	Drybrough	Export				61.5º F	65.5º F	5
	Average					60.9º F	70.3º F	6.20
Sources:
Robert Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number RY/6/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/112.
T & J Bernard brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TJB6/1/1/1.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/35.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/7.

Here's a short YouTube video I made about Eighty Shilling. 

 

 

Scottish Export/80/- hops in the 1950s

Still on my holidays. Unless I've dropped dead from the stress of travel. You never know at my age.

And still pumping out stuff about Eighty Bob. It's a style I drank a reasonable amount of. Mostly in the form of Younger's/McEwans. Which I believe were the same beer. Decent enough stuff, when in cask form. I must have had Maclay's, too. I can't really remember it, though. I'd usually go for their 60/-, if it was an option.

Back to the topic in hand. Hops. Lots of English hops. Which is what you would expect. In the 1950s the UK was about self-sufficient in hops. Meaning not that many were imported.

Most of the beers contain two types of hops. Other than Drybrough Export, which has five. Including two foreign hops, Saaz and Styrian. Interestingly, both from Central Europe.

Not many of the brewing records mention the vitage of the hops. Only William Younger and Bernard bothered. Both were using hops mostly from the most recent season. With just one of William Younger's hops a year older than that.

Scottish Export/80/- hops in the 1950s
Year	Brewer	Beer	hop 1	hop 2	hop 3	hop 4	hop 5
1957	Robert Younger	80/-	English	English
1958	Wm Younger	Export	Kent 1956	Kent 1957
1958	Bernard	Pale 1/4	English 1957	English 1957
1957	Maclay	Export	English	English	English	Saaz	Styrian
1956	Drybrough	Export	English	English
Sources:
Robert Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number RY/6/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/112.
T & J Bernard brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TJB6/1/1/1.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/35.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/7.

Here's a short YouTube video I made about Eighty Shilling.

 

 

Scottish Export/80/- sugars in the 1950s

There's nop end to the 80/- fun. I'll be away in Canada when this is published. That's why I've been spinning so many posts from Eighty Bob. I think it's theown up some interesting stuff, mind.

Today we're looking at the sugars in 80/-. And there are way more of them than malts. Ten, in total. Seven of them just in Drybrough Export. Though, proportionally, Maclay's had the greatest quantity, at almost 19%.

Let's work left to right. Three of the beers contain malt extract. This was pretty common at the time. Usually, it was a way of getting some extra enzymes into the mash. Unlike the other sugars, which were added to the copper, while malt extract went into the mash tun.

All the beers contain invert of some sort. It's just not specified which type, in most cases. The stuff just called "invert" is probably No. 1 or No. 2 invert. Cane sugar is, I assume, unrefined cane sugar.

NExt we have a whole bunch of proprietary sugars: Hydrol, Avona, DSS, Fison and CWE. No real idea what that lot are. I'm surprised that a couple, Hydrol and Avona, appear in more than one beer.

The average sugar content is 15%. Though there's quite a bit of variation across the different breweries. 

Scottish Export/80/- sugars in the 1950s
Year	Brewer	Beer	malt extract	no. 1 sugar	invert	cane sugar	Hydrol	Avona	DSS	Fison	CWE	caramel	total sugar
1957	Robert Younger	80/-	1.39%		6.94%		5.55%					0.07%	13.95%
1958	Wm Younger	Export			4.48%	8.96%							13.43%
1958	Bernard	Pale 1/4			7.27%			4.85%					12.12%
1957	Maclay	Export	2.70%	10.81%					5.41%				18.92%
1956	Drybrough	Export	2.16%		4.31%		2.16%	3.23%		2.16%	2.16%		16.17%
	Average												14.92%
Sources:
Robert Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number RY/6/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/112.
T & J Bernard brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TJB6/1/1/1.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/35.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/7.

Take a look at my recent Youtube video on Eighty Shilling. 

 

Scottish Export/80/- in the 1950s

Have you been enjoying my stuff about Eighty Shillings? Whether you have or not, there's lots more coming. I seem to have got sidetracked into it. Oh, well.

In this post, we'll be looking at 60/- in the 1950s. Which is when the modern form of the style crystallised. When brewers were finally freed from the last restrictions of WW II. 

I've examples from five breweries, which I hope is pretty representative. All of the breweries were based in Edinburgh, other than Maclay which was in Alloa.

Only one of the beers was called 80/- in the brew house, that from Robert Younger. I'm guessing that all of them would have called Export in the pub, mind. Though that might not have been the name on the pump.

The gravities vary from 1040º to 1046º. Averaging 1044º. Which is about where I'd expect a post-WW II 80/-. There's almost as much varition in the finishing gravities, going from 1009.5º to 1015º.

On Account of the greatly varying rates of attenuation, from 63% to 79%, the ABVs are all over the place. There's a difference of 1.5% ABV between the weakest, Maclay's, and the strongest, William Younger's.

Most of the examples were hopped at around 4 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt. The outlier being Maclay's at 6 lbs. In England, the hopping would have been more like at Maclay. At the other breweries, it's quite light, by UK standards. 

Scottish Export/80/- in the 1950s
Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1957	Robert Younger	80/-	1043	1012	4.10	72.09%	4.93	0.83
1958	Wm Younger	Export	1046	1009.5	4.83	79.35%	4.39	0.77
1958	Bernard	Pale 1/4	1046	1013.3	4.33	71.20%	3.97	0.76
1957	Maclay	Export	1040	1015	3.31	62.50%	6.05	1.00
1956	Drybrough	Export	1045	1013.5	4.17	70.00%	4.35	0.80
	Average		1044.0	1012.7	4.15	71.03%	4.74	0.83
Sources:
Robert Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number RY/6/1/2.
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/3/112.
T & J Bernard brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number TJB6/1/1/1.
Maclay brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number M/6/1/1/35.
Drybrough brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/7.

Here's a short YouTube video I made about Eighty Shilling. 

 

1951 Maclay PA 6d

To follow on from my recent video about Scottish 60/-, I thought I'd publish a recipe for a post-war version. Even better than that, it's a beer I drank myself. In fact, it's about the only Scottish-brewed 60/- I've ever drunk.

You might find the name confusing. 6d was the price this type of beer retailed for per pint between the wars. It would have been double that price by 1951, but the name remained. At least in the brew house. I'm sure that in pubs it was called either 60/- or Light.

The recipe is pretty typical for Scotland, with just a single type of malt, plus adjuncts and sugar. I say one type of malt. There were actually three, all of them pale malt. Having a blend of base malts was pretty typical in the UK. So that, when a supply of malt ran out and was substituted, there wouldn't be a sudden big change in the flavour of the beer.

The two sugars were No. 1 invert and something called DCS. I know that the latter was invert-based and dark, so I've substituted No. 3 invert. Caramel would have been added at racking time to take the colour to around 20 SRM. At least to some of the beer. Knowing what Scottish brewers were like, the chances are it was sold in every shade from as-brewed to almost black. All achieved through the addition of caramel at racking.

The two mashing temperatures are before and after an underlet.

There were three types of English hops, no vintage specified. 

1951 Maclay PA 6d
pale malt	5.50 lb	85.21%
flaked rice	0.33 lb	5.11%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.50 lb	7.75%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.125 lb	1.94%
Fuggles 90 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1030
FG	1012
ABV	2.38
Apparent attenuation	60.00%
IBU	21
SRM	4
Mash at	148/157º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

 This is my recent video on the 60/- style:

 

Let's Brew - 1966 Maclay PA 6d

To get you in the mood for the 1970s, here's a beer from the mid-1960s. A 60/-. Is it a Mild, is it a dark Pale Ale? Who gives a fuck? I don't any more. SO what if I thought it was a Dark Mild when I drank it?

There’s not a great deal to the recipe, which is also typically Scottish. Mostly pale malt with a bit of sugar and, some flaked maize. There’s also a proprietary sugar called DCS. No idea what that is, so I’ve just increased the quantity of No. 1 invert. And a touch of malt extract. But it’s really just a variation on a theme. Styrian Golding and English hops.

As for colour, the one in the recipe is as brewed. The versions I drank were around 20-25 SRM. Feel free to colour it with caramel to any shade you fancy.

1966 Maclay PA 6d
pale malt	5.00 lb	75.28%
flaked maize	0.75 lb	11.29%
malt extract	0.125 lb	1.88%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.75 lb	11.29%
caramel 5000 SRM	0.02 lb	0.26%
Styrian Goldings 90 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1030
FG	1012
ABV	2.38
Apparent attenuation	60.00%
IBU	23
SRM	11
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

 

Let's Brew - 1939 Maclay PA 7d

Top of the Maclay Pale Ale pile was PA 7d. Despite its relatively modest strength.

In London, a beer of this gravity would have barely even counted as an Ordinary Bitter and was well short of the strength of a Best Bitter. It doesn’t make being a Scottish drinker seem very attractive. The beers local breweries supplied were both weaker and more expensive than elsewhere.

I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the colour I list for any Maclay beer. With their penchant for colouring beers with caramel at racking time, Scottish brewers regularly sold the same beer in as many as six or seven colour  variations. Depending on which city you were drinking in, PA 7d could have varied in colour from the 7.5 SRM as brewed to 20 or even 25 SRM.

Based on how often it turns up in the brewing records, PA 7d was being brewed in considerably smaller quantities than PA 5d and PA 6d.

1939 Maclay PA 7d
pale malt	6.75 lb	77.14%
flaked maize	0.50 lb	5.71%
No. 2 invert sugar	1.50 lb	17.14%
Styrian Goldings 90 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 min	1.00 oz
Goldings 30 min	1.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.75 oz
OG	1042
FG	1014.5
ABV	3.64
Apparent attenuation	65.48%
IBU	32
SRM	7.5
Mash at	149º F
After underlet	156º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

This recipe is from my recently-released Blitzkrieg!, the definitive book on brewing during WW II.

Get your copy now!

The second volume contains the recipes. But not just that. There are also overviews of some of the breweries covered, showing their beers at the start and the end of the conflict.

Buy one now and be the envy of your friends!

Underlet mashing

I'm so excited to have found some stuff on underlet mashing. Another one of my multiple obsessions.

A widespread method was underlet mashing. A technique that was developed in the last half of the 19th century and remained popular way past WW II. It wasn’t as common in Scotland as in England, but it was still practised north of the border, for example at Maclay. 

After an initial mash at quite a low temperature, 30 minutes later, more hot water was added via the underlet, i.e. from the bottom of the mash tun. The internal rakes were given a couple of spins to mix the new water through the mash. The underlet water was at a hotter temperature than the striking heat and raise the temperature of the goods. In effect it’s a step mash.

After standing for 120 minutes or so, the wort was run off and there were one or two sparges. The exact details varied from brewery to brewery. Because of the need to stir the mash after the underlet, brewers had to have rakes fitted to their tuns. 

There was an explanation for using the method other than improving extract.

“Underletting was not brought into favour merely as assisting in obtaining full extract, but by mashing at a lower initial temperature and then bringing the goods heat up to a high temperature by underlet, it was thought to obtain a wort of more desirable carbohydrate composition for certain classes of beer. There is some reason to think that a sweeter beer was thus obtained. But apart from carbohydrate composition due to controlled diastatic action, there is the question of proteolytic action being more effective at the lower initial temperature and so affecting the nitrogenous composition of the wort favourably. Many experiments have shown that 148°-150° is the temperature at which proteolytic action in the mash tun is inhibited, but at 144 -145º it is positive so that 20 minutes to half an hour at this lower figure might have a very desirable effect in reducing the amount of those bodies which are potentially troublesome in bottled beers. Moreover when an underlet is to be used the mash is generally thicker and in a thick mash proteolytic action is said to be a little stronger.”
The Brewing Trade Review, October 1943, page 309.

I won’t pretend to understand the science there. It does seem underletting influenced the character of the finished beer. If you believe the scienticians.

Here’s a typical underlet mash schedule from my favourite London brewery. It was for a total grain weight of 9,408 lbs.:

1941 Barclay Perkins A and X Ale underlet mash
action	water (barrels)	water heat	goods heat
mash	56	154º F	147º F
underket after 30 mins	14	180º F	151º F
sparge	102	165º F	154º F
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/624.

 

 

Spot the IPA - the results

Here they are, the results of my Spot the IPA contest.

No-one managed to identify all three: namely A, C and E. Only one out of eight participants guessed A. All three of these beers were unequivocally IPA, both being called that in the brewhouse and marketed as such. I'm prepared to concede Boddington IP as sort of an IPA. The brew house name implied that, though it was marketed as Bitter.

Spot the IPA - the results
Beer	Beer	gueses	OG	FG	ABV	app. Atten-uation	IBU	SRM
1939 Barclay Perkins IPA	A	1	1044	1013.5	4.03	69.32%	30	6.5
1939 Barclay Perkins PA	B	1	1053	1018.5	4.56	65.09%	38	7
1939 Whitbread IPA	C	4	1037	1008	3.84	78.38%	36	7.5
1939 Whitbread PA	D	2	1048	1012	4.76	75.00%	29	8
1938 William Younger IPA Pale	E	4	1055	1012	5.69	78.18%	22	4
1938 William Younger XXP	F	3	1042	1010	4.23	76.19%	16	3
1939 Adnams PA	G	2	1039	1010	3.84	74.36%	33	5
1939 Boddington IP	H	5	1045	1010.5	4.56	76.67%	48	6
1939 Drybrough 80/-	I	1	1050	1014.5	4.7	71.00%	26	8
1939 Fullers PA	J	4	1051	1012.5	5.09	75.49%	43	6
1939 Lees Bitter	K	3	1047	1010	4.89	78.72%	30	7
1939 Maclay PA 7d	L	1	1042	1014.5	3.64	65.48%	32	7.5
1939 Maclay PA 6d	M	3	1038	1011.5	3.51	69.74%	30	7
1940 Shepherd Neame PA	N	3	1047	1012	4.63	74.47%	39	5
1940 Shepherd Neame BB	O	3	1038	1009	3.84	76.32%	21	8
1939 Tetley K	P	2	1047.5	1011.6	4.75	75.58%	22.5	7
1939 Truman Pale 1B	Q	1	1053.5	1013.5	5.29	74.77%	30	6
1939 Truman Pale 2	R	4	1047.5	1009.5	5.03	80.00%	27	6

Two people managed to spot two of the IPAs. Plus Boddington IP. But both had more incorrect than correct guesses: Chris Pickles 4 and StuartP 7.

These are the participants' results:

IPA guesses
guesser	guesses	correct	maybe	wrong
UselessLogic	5		1	4
Mr B Fastard	4	1		3
Chris Pickles	7	2	1	4
StuartP	10	2	1	7
Unknown	5	1	1	3
Sen_Repris	4	1		3
Yann	7	1		6
robc	5	1	1	3

Every single beer was guessed at least once. Of the beers with a single guess, one was Barclay Perkins IPA.  The most guessed beer was Boddington IP with 5. I'm gobsmaked that anyone went for Shepherd Neame BB or Maclay PA 5d.

My conclusion? As expected, no-one was really able to pick the two - PA and IPA - apart. No-one got more right than wrong. Unsurprisingly. I wouldn't have been able to do so either, if just given the specs.