Truman's Ales 1850-1851

A promised, more crazily-strong Truman Ales from the 19th century.

Beers made stronger for Export? Take a look below. The second-weakest beer is Export Ale. I have a suspicion where the idea that export beers were stronger came from. After WW I. I've found plenty of export beers in the logs in the 1920's and 1930's. They have the gravities of pre-1914 beers. Brewers continued to make the old-style beers for foreign markets as they weren't liable for UK tax.

Guinness, that's a good example. Until 1916 Extra Stout and Foreign Extra Stout had the same OG: 1074. FES is still about the same, while Extra Stout is a puny 1042 or so. (How can you have a Stout with a gravity below 1055? Guinness Extra Stout is a travesty and doesn't deserve to be called Stout.)


Oh yes, note that the Pale Ale was the weakest beer at 1067. Not very popular, either. There were only a couple of brews a year. X Ale, the ordinary Mild of the day, was an impressive 1078. As the 19th century progressed, the gravity of X Ale dropped to 1055, but Pale Ale stayed much the same, at about 1065.

Beer Calendar

I'm so forgetful. I'd intended publishing my beer calendar before the start of the year. Oh well. Only 10 weeks late.

January - Jenever Month
February - Faro month
March - Mild Month
April - Abstinence Month . . . only joking . . . Authentic (under 4% ABV) IPA Month
May - Mild Month
June - Just About Anything Alcoholic Month
July - Jenever Month. You can't stop at just the one jenever.
August - (St Bernardus) Abt Month
September - (Brown) Stout Month
October - (Any) Old Ale Month
November - Nothing Less Than 9% ABV Month
December - Double Brown (not Southern or Northern) Ale Month

The colour of malt

Recent recipes have resulted in questions about the colour of crystal malt. I never imagined I'd have discussions about things like this. Most, I'm sure, hoped they never would.

Amber malt and crystal malt are right bastards. As much, in their own way, as brown malt. But let's not get distracted by that. Both amber and crystal malt varied greatly in colour from maltster to maltster.

Amber malt filled almost the whole space between pale and brown in terms of colour. How on earth can we hope to work out what shade of malt the records are talking about? There's no colour indication in the logs.

But . . . . there is a hidden clue. Nothing exact, but a rough guide.

Some logs give the weight per quarter (a volume measure) of the various malts. In general, the darker the malt, the lighter the weight. That's something I learned to take account for in transcribing recipes. Five quarters of pale malt is a lot heavier than five quarters of brown malt.

Do you see where I'm leading? We can make a guess at the colour from the weight (in pounds) per quarter.

To the right you'll see the weight per half quarter of Barclay Perkins malts for the years 1937 to 1939.

Crystal malt has weights of 140, 135, 135, 140, 168, 144, 142, 142, 144.

Brown malt 140, 130, 130, 130, 138, 138

Pale Ale malt 169, 168, 165, 168, 168, 170, 170

(That's for those of you who can't be bothered to look at the images.)

Is this nerdy? Yes, if you're threatened by anyone with knowledge because your own ignorance is so great. Personally, I love a puzzle and a challenge.

Working for free

Sometimes I think I'm crazy. All the work I do for nothing. Nada. No reward at all. Except the occasionally bit of laughable abuse. How many hours have I put into the website, blog and book? It doesn't bear thinking about. But working for free does have one huge advantage: you can do whatever you want.

I only write about what I want to. I have no employer, publisher or editor peering over my shoulder, tutting at the unmarketability of my output. Or telling me what to write. It's an incredibly liberating feeling, being your own man*.

That's what's great about the modern electronic world. Everyone has that opportunity. To speak from the heart, without mediation. Though much of what we write may bore the trolleys of all but a handful of the population. I'm not exactly mainstream myself. (My prediction to Mike "I'll sell loads of copies of 'Mild!' - ten easily." may have been a touch optimistic.) Freedom of thought and the freedom to express your thoughts is a beautiful thing.

I'm going to continue writing for free. Because it gives me a satisfaction no sum of money could equal. And to continue writing what I choose. Ditto. No-one will tell me what to write.

*Or woman.

Let's Brew (Whitbread 1950) Mild!

Enough of all those stupidly strong beers. Time to return to a nice watery Mild. The rather inappropriately-named Whitbread Best Ale from 1950.


The main difference between Best Ale and Whitbread's pre-war Mild (apart from the lower gravity) was the amount of crystal malt. In 1939 X Ale, over 13% of the grist was crystal malt. In 1950, it was just about half that. As is typical for mass-produced Milds of the period, the colour comes from dark No.3 invert sugar.

Homebrewing

I've decided to regularise posting historic recipes. From now on, Wednesday will be "Let's Brew" day here at Barclay Perkins.

March will, of course, be given over to Mild recipes. March is Mild Month, after all. Next month? Probably Stock Ales. They're pretty neglected. It should be very educational.

Truman Porter and Stout in 1850

I had a question (from Bill in Oregon) about is response to yesterday's Truman Imperial recipe. Did all the Truman Porters have so little black malt (just over 2%)?

It had struck me how little black malt it used. About 5% is what I would have expected. So I went and had a look at the whole set for the same year, 1850.


As you can see, none had more than 3.3% black malt in the grist. Which is pretty low by later standards. But for 1850? Well let's take a look at Barclay Perkins at the same period:


Pretty much the same: 2 0r 3% black malt. Why so low? Take a look at the rest of the grist. They still contain a healthy proportion of brown malt. My guess is that they were only using the amount of black malt needed to get the desired colour.

Truman 1850 Imperial

Hey, I told you it was Truman week. Here's a recipe from 1850 for Imperial, their top of the range Stout.


Is it me, or are there a ton of hops in that?

Imperial Mild

Imperials. Truman. That's what this week is about. Truman and Imperial. (And being sick as a dog at home with only series 3 and 4 of "Goodnight Sweetheart" to keep me company.) Hey. let's put them together! Truman and Imperial. Isn't that brilliant?

Hold on. I have to think about this. Truman - pretty wild, cool, groovy, baby. Imperial - just out of sight, crazy, apeshit. Can you take both at once? I don't want to uberausgegrub you. (Sorry about the incomprehensibility. Medicine's fault. Got me halfgedeutsching.)

I've been stalling. I'd forgotten that I'd already done the recipe. My isn't mind what was it.


With an OG of 1113, do you think Truman's XXXX was a Quadrupel or an Imperial?

Answers on a postcard to"

Beer Classification Institute,
Megalith House,
3rd potato field on the right,
Tristan da Cunha,

Truman Ales part one: 1831 - 1841

I told you this week was Truman week. It's exciting, isn't it? I'm going to kick off with an overview of Truman's Ales in the middle of the 19th century.

It's funny how beer styles develop over time. Go back 150 years and the relationships between the styles is often quite different. Especially when you look at Mild (a beer where "Alcohol content is traditionally very low"). Odd word, "traditional". Very vague, don't you think? It refers to a practice that was common at some unspecified period in the past.

If "traditional" covers the years 1940 to 1980, then the assessment of Mild being very low in alcohol isn't far from the mark. Go back any further than 1914 and it's utter and complete bollocks. As you'll see from the tables below. The weakest Mild brewed by Truman in the period I cover had a gravity of 1066. I don't think that counts as exceptionally weak in anyone's books. Certainly not mine.


In the 1830's, Truman brewed a wide range of K and X Ales, which varied in strength from strong to bloody strong. The equivalent K and X Ales, for example XX and XXK had similar gravities (though the K version's was usually a touch higher). Their main difference was the hopping rate, which was 50-100% greater in the K Ale.

One other point of interest. Take a look at when the K Ales were brewed. In the table above they were all brewed in March. One of the traditional times for the brewing of Strong Ales.


By 1840, little had changed, except that a new beer had been introduced , 40/- Ale. Now you shouldn't start getting confused by thinking of Scotland. Prior go adopting the use of the X and K system, English breweries had also used the retail price per hogshead as a way of indicating the relative strengths of their different beers.

Table Beer is intriguing, too. Did they really give it to kids? With gravities of 1049 and 1058 neither was exactly watery. They weren't brewing a great deal of Table Beer, squeezing some out of the later runnings of stronger beers every now and again.

You'll note again that all the K Ales but one were brewed in February, March or April. Very traditional.

Don't worry. I've not finished yet. Still more lovely OG charts to come.

Faggots

I've always had a soft spot for faggots*. I can remember my mother feeding me them when I was but a lad. What could be nicer than a hot faggot with mushy peas?

Imagine my surprise when, moving to Thornton Heath in South London, I discovered that they had faggots there, too. Not quite the same as you classic midlands faggot. Not as rounded. But still pretty tasty. Though my mum's faggots were always better.

So let's hear it for faggots. Stonch should get some for his pub. He's already got scratchings. What could be a more perfect match that faggots and scratchings?


* Some ignorant people spell the word "fagget". Such a mistake is typical of a person of limited IQ and an inability to question what he's been told. A fag get, you could say.

Checking out Mild and Brown Ale styles

Given all the recipes I've been posting for Mild and Brown Ale, I thought I'd best check out how the experts describe them.

First off, Ratebeer:

Mild Ale
Slightly malty, no hop flavor or aroma. Medium to dark brown in color with very little head or carbonation. Mild refers to lack of any hop flavor or aroma. Serve with traditional pub fare.

Brown Ale
Color ranges from reddish-brown to dark brown. Lower in alcohol than porter, medium to full body flavor. Appropriate foods are apple pie, pork with brown sauce, beef vegetable soup and cheddar.

This is what BeerAdvocate has to say:

Dark Mild Ale
The quintessential British session beer, like its name suggests, a Mild is known for its low level of hops character. Alcohol content is traditionally very low. Grainy to toasty malts might be present, but expect some body from the high dextrins produced in brewing. Low carbonation with a near still, bubbly head. Colors can range from gold to dark brown. Traditionally a draft beer made popular in London and the Midlands of England.


English Brown Ale
Spawned from the Mild Ale, Brown Ales tend to be maltier and sweeter on the palate, with a fuller body. Color can range from reddish brown to dark brown. Some versions will lean towards fruity esters, while others tend to be drier with nutty characters. All seem to have a low hop aroma and bitterness.

And finally, the most pretigious of all, the BJCP:

Dark Mild Ale
Overall Impression: A light-flavored, malt-accented beer that is readily suited to drinking in quantity. Refreshing, yet flavorful. Some versions may seem like lower gravity brown porters.

History: May have evolved as one of the elements of early porters. In modern terms, the name “mild” refers to the relative lack of hop bitterness (i.e., less hoppy than a pale ale, and not so strong). Originally, the “mildness” may have referred to the fact that this beer was young and did not yet have the moderate sourness that aged batches had. Somewhat rare in England, good versions may still be found in the Midlands around Birmingham.


Southern English Brown Ale
History: English brown ales are generally split into sub-styles along geographic lines. Southern English (or “London-style”) brown ales are darker, sweeter, and lower gravity than their Northern cousins. Developed as a bottled product in the early 20th century out of a reaction against vinous vatted porter and often unpalatable mild. Well suited to London’s water supply.

Ingredients: English pale ale malt as a base with a healthy proportion of darker caramel malts and often some roasted (black) malt and wheat malt. Moderate to high carbonate water would appropriately balance the dark malt acidity. English hop varieties are most authentic, though with low flavor and bitterness almost any type could be used.

Do you think these descriptions match what we're seeing in the recipes? I'd appreciate your comments.

I will say one thing. BeerAdvocate says of Dark Mild: "Alcohol content is traditionally very low". I like that one. Like "IPA is strong". When exactly does the "Traditional" period cover? For Dark Mild, it's post WW II. For IPA, it seems to be 1830.

Truman week

It's Truman week here at Barclay Perkins. Or is it Imperial week? No, that sounds a bit fascist. Truman week it is. I've so many exciting things planned. I can hardly wait.

"What have you got in store for us, Ronald?" So much, so much. I'll kick off with an overview of Truman's Ales 1831 - 1865. Fascinating, it is. You should see the gravities of those suckers. Seeing just how Pale Ale (they brewed it once or twice a year) relates to the X and K Ales is very revealing. Pale Ale a strong beer, eh?

There will be a couple of special recipe posts called "Let's brew Imperial!" One - a Stout - really was called Imperial. The other, well I call it Imperial Mild. For Truman's it was just XXXX. I think my name's snappier.

Popularity

I've never had as many friends. If Facebook is to be believed. OK, so I don't know who many of them are. They still count as friends, don't they?

Michelle DeWitt and Brianne Day. They look like people I'd like to know. I'm not going to complain about extra young female friends. I've always been short on those. But it would be sort of nice to have some idea of who they are and how come we've ended up as friends on Facebook.

Maybe they've a family connection with Barclay Perkins.

It's a good likeness, don't you think, the image to the right? Except for the hat. I don't wear hats.

Let's Brew 1955 Whutbread DB Brown Ale!

Not another recipe today. Two more recipes. You must be all leaping for joy. I know I am.

Brown Ale. Yet another topic I like to bang on about. (That makes 3,229 and counting.) You know that stuff about "Northern" and "Southern" Brown Ales. I'd like to know where Whitbread Double Brown fits into that simplistic scheme of things. It was too strong to be a "Southern" Brown and too dark to be a "Northern" Brown. And it was brewed in the South.

In the 1950's Whitbread brewed two very different Brown Ales. Double Brown and Forest Brown. The former was Whitbread's first Brown Ale, introduced in 1926. Below are the recipes for both. The originals were, coincidentally, brewed on the same day.

Double Brown's gravity had changed little since its birth. The 1926 version was 1054, the 1955 one 1051. With a base of PA malt, its grist was quite different to Whitbread Milds of the period and was similar to that of PA or IPA. Forest Brown, on the other hand, had a base of Mild Ale malt and very closely resembled the grist for Best Ale, Whitbread's Mild. Though it is not identical. Forest Brown is slightly stronger at 1033 as opposed to 1031 for the Mild.



I've just taken a look at which ingredients the BJCP claim go into a Southern English Brown Ale:

"English pale ale malt as a base with a healthy proportion of darker caramel
malts and often some roasted (black) malt and wheat malt. Moderate to high
carbonate water would appropriately balance the dark malt acidity. English hop
varieties are most authentic, though with low flavor and bitterness almost any
type could be used."

All I can say is that the malt stuff is total fantasy. The weaker types of Brown Ale I've seen recipes for all got their colour from dark sugar or caramel. And the base malt was mild not pale ale malt. Where do they get crap like this from? Just make it up?

Let's brew (Whitbread 1923) PA!

This recipe is mainly for comparison purposes. To let you see how Whitbread's IPA related to their PA.

The IPA was considerably weaker (1036 as opposed to 1046 for the PA), but had more hops and was more highly-attenuated. The ingredients used were pretty much the same: English 2-row pale ale malt, American 6-row pale malt, no.1 brewing sugar and East Kent and Mid Kent hops. Interestingly, the PA had a higher proportion of sugar than the IPA.

PA was Whitbread's standard draught Bitter. IPA was their biggest-selling beer, but was only available in bottled form. Whitbread's PA was a little on the weak side. More typical was a gravity of 1048, but some London brewers, such as Watney and Barclay Perkins, brewed their PA to a gravity of over 1050.

The dry-hopping is a guess, based on the practice at Barclay Perkins. Whitbread PA would certainly have been dry-hopped. Unfortunately, their brewing logs make no mention of dry hops. This isn't unusual. Barclay Perkins are the only brewery I've come across so far that did bother to.



If I carry on at this rate you'll soon be able to recreate the whole Whitbread 1923 range. Now Wouldn't that be fun?

I'm still trying to decide on tomorrow's recipe. I'm torn between 1923 Whitbread KK and Whitbread's two 1955 Brown Ales, Double Brown and Forest Brown. Do you have any preference?

Comments on my recipes, please

I'm starting to go recipe crazy. But before I waste too much time, I'd like to make sure that I'm doing it right.

First, water volumes. I'm reckoning on the basis of about 6.5 gallons to get 5 gallons of wort. Is this about right for homebrewers?

Grain quantities: after a comment about the mashing efficiency homebrewers get, I've started upping the amount of grain by 5-10%. Are the quantities I've given correct for target gravity? I'm sure some of you have that fancy brewing software you can just feed it into.

Hops. Currently I'm giving the vintage and scaling down the quantity as given in the log. That is, I'm not making any allowance for the age of hops. Do you prefer the recipes as they are or would you prefer me to just give the equivalent amount of fresh hops?

Any other comments or suggestions are welcome.

Let's Brew 1923 Whitbread IPA!

I've got a good one for you today. An old IPA recipe. Whitbread IPA from 1923, to be precise.

[Shouting warning] Remember me mentioning weaker IPA. And how ridiculous it is to state, as the BJCP does, that it is incorrect to call any beer under 4% ABV an IPA. What justification do they have for that statement? History? How long do you have to brew a beer a certain way for that to become traditional for the style? Think about that while you're looking at this recipe.

IPA was Whitbread's biggest seller in 1923, accounting for 23% of sales. It was exclusively a bottled beer. To put IPA's gravity of 1036 into context, Whitbread's standard draught Mild, X, had an OG of 1042, and its standard draught Bitter, PA, 1046.


2009 minus 1923. I make that 86 years. The weak British style of IPA has been around at least that long. Yet it's tantamount to fraud if you listen to some. Now tell me, how long has DIPA been going?

Why is to so difficult to accept this type of IPA as legitimate? They've been with us a lot longer than the American variety.

Let's brew (1923 Whitbread) Mild

Time for another Mild recipe. This is fun, isn't it. It now really is March. I can get really into the swing of Mild March Month. Not seen much (well, any) mention of it elsewhere yet. Must be the CAMRA beer police suppressing it. Will they stop at nothing to impose May as Mild Month?

This is another pretty standard 1920's London Mild. People have commented in the amount of sugar in some of these old recipes. Here's one with just a little. But a very important ingredient as that provides all the colour. You can find details of No.3 brewing sugar here.

Some more recipe notes. MA = Mild Ale malt. Californian would usually imply 6-row barley. The Thetford was British 2-row.

Here's a word on Oregon hops. The main West Coast hop-growing regions were Sonoma, Russian River and Sacramento in California; the Williamette Valley in Oregon; and the Yakima Valley in Washington State. The commonest variety was the Oregon, also known as Late Cluster. It was thought to be a cross between an English hop and wild American hops. It had a high lupulin content an excellent preservative qualities. The only drawback was the strong blackcurrant flavour that meant it could not be used on its own. (Source: "Brewing Science & Practice" H. Lloyd Hind, 1943, pages 394-395.)

British Columbian hops. Large amounts of hops were grown in British Columbia in Cananda, mostly in the Fraser River Valley and on the Sumas Prairie. The most important varieties were English Fuggle's and Goldings which had been planted in the the middle of the 19th century. These hops were generally similar in flavour to their English ancestors. Some American Cluster hops were also grown.


In many brews, caramel was added to get the colour to exactly the right shade. The colour is given in the log 6.5 Red 40 Brown. Anyone have any idea how this relates to modern EBC values?

Where are we going to put it all?

My latest book-buying spree has delivered mixed results. Buying brewery histories is a total lottery. Some have nothing at all of interest. The corporate ones are the worst. Scarcely even a mention of beer.

I'm often very critical of other beer writing. You get the written equivalent of the shouting I do at the television. Programmes about all sorts of things get me yelling. History. Language. Music. Architecture. House restoration. The weather. And especially beer.

Brewery histories. Local histories. A lottery. I hope for old adverts. Easy illustrations to find and black and white. Perfect for such books. There's rarely more in terms of hard beer facts than what's in the adverts. At least you learn what beers they brewed. I order these histories and hope. (Don't tell Dolores about that. "What! You don't even know what's in these books? Ronald! Stop wasting our money on that crap. Where are we going to put it all?"

A book that doesn't make me squeak in despair. "Cardiff Pubs and Breweries" by Brian Glover. It's got some pretty handy bits. "That looks just like the boring crap you write, dad." was Andrew's opinion. He's not far wrong. Lot's of letters. X's. OG's. The stuff I collect. I've already begun the harvest. It is very sad, I know, that a grown man can get so excited at the size of a beer's gravity.

A definite keeper. *

Dolores gave me the you're-bankrupting-us-with-these-stupid-books speech today. But only for 5 minutes. I'm good for another dozen, I reckon. Books. Not being told off. I'm used to that. My mum. My brother. Various bosses. Lexie ("You alcoholic!"), Andrew. Pretty much every Czech waiter that ever served me.

Here's the beer details I've gleaned from "Cardiff Pubs and Breweries". Plus some others from the Whitbread Gravity Book.





I'm not going to comment much on these today. Just a couple of points.

Pre-WW I, the beers are pretty weak. Hancock's XX was just 1040 in 1905. That's very weak. The weakest Mild from most breweries was over 1050. Treherbert's XX was a pathetic 1032 in 1915. I've never seen a Mild gravity so low before 1918. Post WW I, gravities dropped less than in England. In fact they were barely lower then pre-war. The net result was that Welsh beers became much closer in strength to their English counterparts.

There's also a large number of different Milds from each brewery. Hancock's brewed 3 right up until 1960.

That's it for now. More recipes tomorrow, I think. What about a nice, weak IPA?

* I never throw a book away.