Indian-brewed Porter and Ale

Funny what you stumble across when looking for something else. Searching for "government ale" produced this result: evidence of Indian-brewed Porter and Ale from the 1880's.

EXCISE DUTY.

Mr. CALNE (Barrow) asked the Under Secretary of State for India (1), if it was true that there is a large brewery established at Poona by Messrs. Meakin and Co., and that under a Government Resolution, No. 34, 5th January, 1886, the malt liquor brewed in this firm is exempted from the payment of any Excise Duty, and that, under Government Resolution, No. 1,652, 2nd March 1886, a wholesale licence was granted to Messrs. Meakin and Co. for the sale of their malt liquors in Bombay for a fee of 50 rupees; (2), if it was true that there are in all 68 other wholesale licences in the town and island of Bombay charged sums varying from 100 to 1,000 rupees ; (S), why was it that Messrs. Meakin and Co. pay no Excise Duty, and obtain a wholesale licence on exceptionally favourable terms; (4), were the malt liquors brewed by Messrs. Meakin and Co. the same as those described as "Government porter, of 11 per cent strength [6.3% ABV], and Government ale, 11.7 per cent strength, of proof spirit [6.97% ABV]," on page 12 of the Report of the Bombay Abkari Commission, 1885; if not, can he state what is the alcoholio strength of Meakin's beer and porter; (5), was any other firm of brewers in India exempted from the payment of Excise Duty; (6), whether his attention had been called to the statement on the same page of the Report, that the tax on toddy was 6 rupees on 40 gallons in 1885, and that its alcoholic strength increases 5 per cent in 24 hours, and is he aware that large quantities of toddy are consumed freshly drawn from the tree, in which state it is entirely free from alcohol ; (7), was he aware that the Duty on imported malt liquors is only one anna per gallon, while that on toddy, whether alcoholic or not, is an average of two annas per gallon; (8), was he aware that there is a widespread feeling of discontent all over the Bombay Presidency with regard to these inequalities of taxation, which found expression in the evidence given before the above-mentioned Commission, and that the Report of the Commission recommends an assimilation of the Duties on malt liquors and toddy ; and (9), was it the intention of the Bombay Government to carry out this recommendation by raising the Duty on imported, and the Excise on malt liquors manufactured within their jurisdiction ?
"Hansard's parliamentary debates, Volume 334", 1889, pages 138-379.

It's not just the date that surprised me, but that they were brewing Porter. Then again, there's still that Stout brewed in Sri Lanka, isn't there?

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1928 Barclay Perkins OMS

Part whatever in our series of Barclay Perkins beers from the 1920's. And, amazingly, actually appearing on a Wednesday. Who could ask for more?

You're going to get it, though. More, that is. Because this beer I can use like a pointy stick to poke you in the eye with. To make a didactic point. Everyone likes a poke now and then. Oatmeal Stout. I've seen my fair share of these beers. They were all the rage in the first half of the 20th century. And for the most part a big con. Why? Because they mostly contained bugger all oats. Little more than a token amount in many cases.

My first sighting of Barclay Perkins OMS was 1910. When it had a gravity of 1053º. And one of the 32 quarters in the grist was oats. Roughly 3%. By the 1920's, the oats content was down to just a few pounds. Surely not enough to have been noticeable.

More revealing is what went on at Whitbread. In 1912, they suddenly started throwing a few oats into their Porter/London Stout party-gyle. They'd obviously started marketing an Oatmeal Stout. But, not having a second small brewhouse like Barclay Perkins, they couldn't brew it as aa standalone beer. No problem - just add it to the party-gyle. Except it wasn't really a different beer. Just the London Stout under another name. Because or the party-gyle, it meant that the Porter was in reality an Oatneal Porter and all the London Stout was an Oatmeal Stout.

Not that it mattered. No-one was going to spot the fact. The quantity of oats was laughable. 1 quarter out of 402. What's that? About 0.25% of the grist. A total joke, really.

I've just been going through Fuller's WW I brewing records. In 1910 they started hoying the odd pound of oats into their Porter/Brown Stout party-gyle. Half a quarter in a grist of 75 quarters. A bit over 1% of the grist. I suspect they were up to the same as Whitbread. They'd started marketing an Oatmeal Stout and the simplest way to make one was to simply modify their Stout recipe to include a token quantity of oats. Presumably taking care not to add so much as to piss off the drinkers of their standard Stout.

There is one exception to this. One Oatmeal Stout that's worthy of the name: Maclay's 1909 OMS. That has 4.5 quarters of oats out of a total of just 16.5 quarters. That's a bit more like it. Enough oats to actually taste.

There you have it. Oatmeal Stout. A marketing concept rather than a real style. Where have I come across something like that before?




On that cheerful note, I'll pass you on to Kristen . . . . .

Barclay Perkins - 1928 - OMS
General info: OMS, OMG, Oatmeal stout! Finally, an oatmeal stout! Wait, where’s the oatmeal? Crammed in the very top of the grist ingredients, kinda penned in at the last minute. 16 pounds of oats for over 9000 gals of beer. Can't you just TASTE the oatmeal!? Oatmeal or not, this is a bloody great stout. Looks very much like an Imperial grist just lower in gravity. A baby RIS. yeah, I like that....
Beer Specifics			Recipe by percentages
Gravity (OG)	1.051		53.5% English 2 row			4.1% Flaked Maize
Gravity (FG)	1.014		8.5% Amber malt			0.1% Flaked Oats
ABV	4.93%		7.3% Roasted Barley
Apparent attenuation	72.55%		6.3% Crystal 75
Real attenuation	59.43%		4.7% Brown malt
IBU	48.6		Mash	90min@152°F		0.71qt/lb
SRM	117			90min@66.7°C		1.48L/kg
EBC	231.0
			Boil	2.25 hours
	Homebrew @ 70%				Craft @ 80%
Grist	5gal		19L		10bbl		10hl
English 2 row	5.47	lb	2.490	kg	296.65	lb	114.62	kg
Amber malt	0.87	lb	0.397	kg	47.27	lb	18.26	kg
Roasted Barley	0.75	lb	0.341	kg	40.65	lb	15.70	kg
Crystal 75	0.64	lb	0.292	kg	34.77	lb	13.43	kg
Brown malt	0.48	lb	0.219	kg	26.08	lb	10.08	kg
Flaked Maize	0.42	lb	0.192	kg	22.82	lb	8.82	kg
Flaked Oats	0.01	lb	0.004	kg	0.53	lb	0.21	kg
Invert No3	1.40	lb	0.638	kg	76.07	lb	29.39	kg
Caramel Colorant	0.18	lb	0.080	kg	9.51	lb	3.67	kg
	8.631		3.930		554.35124
Hops
Cluster 7% 120min	0.28	oz	8.0	g	17.46	oz	0.422	kg
Fuggle 5.5% 90min	1.78	oz	50.4	g	110.29	oz	2.665	kg
Fermentation	63°F /17.2°C
Yeast	Nottingham ale
	1968 London ESB Ale Yeast  - WLP002 English Ale Yeast
Tasting Notes: Holy darkness. This sucker is nearly black but has these beautiful ruby highlights running through her. Tons of toasted malt, bread crusts. Very strong espresso and mocha. Hints of dark caramel with a chewy resinous hop twang. Treacle and tree sap. Plummy fruit and brandied cherries. So complex, so smooth. Perfect pint to go with a nice fruit cake. Something you can fall into and give you another hour or so of fuel to be able to deal with the holiday season.

Christmas competition

Some judge pics. Others words. I'm going back to childhood. A colouring contest.

Lexie will decide the winner. Entries to be sent to the email address at the bottom of my website.

Government Ale joke (7)

From Punch, May 21, 1919

It appears that a Wallasey licensee, in order to satisfy his customers, sent a sample of Government ale to be analysed. We understand that the analyst reported that there was nothing in it.

Cologne (2)

A pure beer brewery in Sheffield (1a)

More from the Departmental committee on beer materials. The interviews are fascinating. Hearing brewers describe their trade fleshes out the brewing records a treat. The passage below provides an insight into how ingredients were selected.

I've seen Bavarian hops many times in brewing logs. But never known exactly why they were being used. I do now.

5946. You say that it is your rule "to purchase all " English malt of fine to finest quality, and selected from  three distinct districts." Why have you specially selected three districts?  —I was advised by a friend of mine, who is a large brewer, when I first took the management of the brewery, to get them from two or three distinct districts; he said : " What you may be deficient in one district, you may gain in another" ; and we now buy our barleys as far as possible from three distinct barley-growing districts.

5947. Have you any objection to specify those districts? —Oh, no ; at the present time we have a contract for malt with a Mr. Haynes, of Ratcliffe-on-Trent, near Nottingham.

5948. A maltster ? —Yes; and we have one with Sandars and Company, of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.

5949. Also maltsters ? —Large maltsters. Then we buy another portion from Mr. Milnthorpe, maltster, of Barnby-Don, near Doncaster. These are the three districts that we get our malt from.

5950. You buy your malt ready made ? —That is so.

5951. You do not buy the grain and malt it yourselves ? —No.

5952. (Professor Odling.) You do not actually know where the barley itself is grown ? —Well, it always comes out of those districts.

5953. In which the maltsters' places are ? —Yes; of course, it would hardly pay them to get it out of another district.

5954. (Chairman.) It is from information which they give you that you know that a certain proportion of foreign malt is blended with it ? —We buy the foreign malt independently.

5955. And blend it yourselves ? —We blend the malts ourselves.

5956. Where do you get your foreign malt from ? —We buy the foreign malt from Sandars, of Gainsborough, chiefly; we buy California and Smyrna malt, as a rule.

5957. But you do not blend it until it comes to your brewery ?—That is so.

5958. You say you use a certain proportion of what you call choice Bavarian hops ?—Yes.

5959. Do you consider that that is a hop which is conducive to the brewing of better beer than English hops, or is it a matter of economy ?—No, they are fully as dear ; the price is fully as high as that of the best English hops.

5960. You think it adds to the flavour of your beer ? — And to the keeping qualities.

5961. A certain admixture of Bavarian hops adds to the keeping quality of the beer?— We think so; that is our experience.
"Minutes of evidence taken before the Departmental committee on beer materials", 1899, page 227.
Evidence given by George Harston, Managing Director of the Anchor Brewery, Sheffield.

Using a blend of several malts was pretty much standard practice by this point. I'd always assumed that this was to even out the differences in any specific batch of malt,. And it seems I was right. Hooray for me!

Government Ale - no joke (2)

From NZ Truth, 1918:

"The Duke's State Ale

Government Brew Sampled by the King's Uncle at Enfield. Two Good Glasses. Workers at Enfield Small Arms Factory on October 12 last, saw the Duke of Connaught drink a glass of Government fivepenny. They are now reconciled to Government ale for all time. According to a member of the Royal suite, the Duke's feelings and judgment were appreciative. He did not stop at one glass, but tried each of the two brands of Government ale. The occasion was the opening of the reconstructed Royal Small Arms Tavern, with its bright brickwork and green shutters, and a grand menu, which includes roast fowl at eightpence, chop toad, and pork cutlets at the same ridiculous figure, and custard and stewed fruit for twopence, with "plain and marmalade" or "plain and jam" inclusive for a nimble couple of coppers. HEALTHY, HAPPY, AND WELLFED. To a large body of workers the Duke declared: "I am a great' believer in the workmen, on whom we depend so largely, being healthy, happy, and wellfed. When you are hard- at work you must have good food. "I hope this is only the beginning of these taverns which we shall see growing up round our centres of work. They will be better in every way than the old public-houses." The Duke and Mrs. Winston . Churchill later inspected the kitchens. "

Condescending bastard.

WW I and the Netherlands

Or the Dutch brewing industry. Remember that post from a couple of days ago about U-boats and Amstel? I mentioned the surprisingly large impact on the neutral Netherlands.

I thought I had some numbers somewhere to demonstrate that impact. I did. And I've gathered them up for you, like sticklebacks in a net. The number of breweries in the UK and the Netherlands 1895 to 1930. I knew this stuff would come in handy one day.

First, the Netherlands:

Dutch breweries by province
	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930
Noord-Brabant	241	214	191	72	65
Gelderland	42	31	27	13	10
Zuid-Holland	35	25	24	14	-
Noord-Holland	22	19	17	12	10
Zeeland	36	33	31	25	25
Utrecht	12	7	7	4	3
Overijssel	10	9	7	3	3
Friesland	2	2	2	2	2
Groningen	20	16	14	1	1
Drenthe	1	1	1	0	0
Limburg	236	216	201	77	66
Total:	657	574	522	223	198
Sources:
Nederlands Etiketten Logboek, 1998

Note the big drop between 1910 and 1920.

Now here's the UK:

UK breweries 1890 - 1930
	1890	1900	1905	1910	1914	1920	1930
<1000 barrels	9,986	4,759	3,787		2,536
>1000 barrels	2,014	1,531	1,393		1,111
total	12,000	6,290	5,180	4,512	3,647	2,914	1,418
Sources:
"Journal of the Institute of Brewing, vol 7", 1901, page 64
BBPA Statistical Handbook 2003, p. 92
Brewers' Almanack 1955 p.69

See? Between 1910 and 1920 57% of Dutch breweries closed and only 35% of UK breweries.

Looks to me like WW I was worse for Dutch brewing than British.