Parti-gyling in the 1950s

A technique much-beloved of UK breweries, for a whole variety of reasons. The most obvious being efficiency. It was a way of using every last drop of wort.

Parti-gyling was also a very convenient and economical way of producing low-volume beers. Fullers, for example, with a brew length of 200-300 barrels, produced OBE, their Burton Ale, in batches as small as 10 barrels. This was only possible because it was parti-gyled with a much larger quantity of Mild Ale.

Here’s an example of one of those Fullers parti-gyles of OBE with Mild:

1958 Fullers OBE
barrels	OG
21.75	1059.5
4.25	1013.1
1.25	1002.8
27.25	1049.6
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery

1958 Fullers Hock
barrels	OG
79.25	1059.5
117.5	1013.1
2.25	1002.8
199	1031.4
Source:
Fullers brewing record held at the brewery

The three worts were hopped and boiled separately then blended post-boil to hit the required volumes and gravity for the two beers.

In Scotland, virtually everything was parti-gyled. Most breweries had a single recipe from which they produced three separate Pale Ales (60/-, 70/- and 80/-) and a Strong Ale.


This is an exceprt from my excellent book on brewing after WW II.


http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/austerity/23181344

Fuller's OBE

One of the handy things about looking through brewing logs in the brewery, is that you have someone to ask questions. It can simplify things considerably. I'd guessed that OBE didn't stand for Order of the British Empire. John Keeling was able to explain its meaning. Old Burton Extra.

It's one of the beers I'd wanted to find. Fuller's Burton. A strong, dark Ale that was replaced by ESB in the early 1970's. The first occurence I found was in the 1935 brewing book. Where it was party-gyled with X and BO. I've no idea what BO was. It actually looks more like the gravity I would expect from a Burton - somewhere in the mid-1050's. These are the vital statistics of the three different beers:

________________OBE____BO_____X
gravity (lbs barrel)__24.40___20.20___11.74
gravity (OG)______1067.59__1055.95_1032.52
gravity (FG)______1019.94__1014.40_1007.76
ABV_____________6.30____5.50____3.28
apparent attenuation_70.49%__74.26%__76.15%

The OBE was unusual for a couple of reasons. For a start, only 2 barrels were brewed. Out of 515.5 barrels (453 of X, 60.5 of BO). Only the first wort was used. The fermentation was very fast for a beer of it's gravity. It was down to 1021.6º after just 48 hours, though it wasn't racked for another 3 days. It wasn't dropped into a square, but fermented all in an FV. Not surprising. Two barrels would barely cover the bottom of one of the settling squares.

Here are the full details of the fermentation:


These were the ingredients used:

English pale malt____26.67%
Australian pale malt__26.67%
Australian pale malt__23.16%
Chilean pale malt____3.51%
flake_____________14.47%
sugar____________5.52%

Of the sugar, the dark sugar "Intense" made up 1.46% of the grist. This was presumably solely responsible for the dark colour.

I keep thinking about the tiny batch size of just two barrels. Surely OBE couldn't have been a draught beer?