Let's brew Wednesday - Fullers 1962 Nourishing Stout

As promised, here's the third and final Fullers 1962 brew. Nourishing Stout.

It's time, as berks say, to contextualise this beer. I've details of 405 UK Stouts, brewed between 1950 and 1963. Only six have a lower gravity. So I think we can safely say this was a relatively weak Stout.

In case you were wondering, the average gravity of all 405 Stouts is 1041.9, ABV 3.4% and apparent attenuation 63%. 163 of the Stouts had an OG less than 1040, 130 an OG between 1040 and 1045, 95 an OG between 1045 and 150, 8 an OG between 1050 to 1060, 7 an OG between 1060 to 1070. Just two were above 1070. The weakest was 1.29% ABV, the strongest 7.97%.

A pretty diverse bunch. But the majority were in the range 1040 - 1050. The averages hide just how sweet and syrupy some of the beers were. George Younger's Sweetheart Stout is the most extreme: OG 1036.4, FG 1024.4. That's 33% attenuation. Its name was very apposite.

Fullers Nourishing Stout was drier than many of its competitors, but packed a pretty puny punch. I wouldn't want to try and get pissed on it. But I guess I wasn't their target market. That was people like my mum, who weren't after an alcohol buzz.

I think that's about all I have to say. Maybe I should pull out that Fullers Porter from the 1950's. Might make an interesting comparison. Hang on, here it is . . . .

You know what? It looks very like Nourishing Stout. Take a decko at its grist:


The gravities are about the same, too: OG 1031, FG 1011.



In the meantime, here's Kristen . . .


Fullers 1962 Nourishing Stout

Nourishing stout huh. At 1.032 with the same amount of bu's it has a very Murphys look to it...then everything from there changes. This is the first non-gyle we've done in a while which makes it very very simple to discuss. With all the adjuncts this beer would actually be quite chock full of minerals and good stuff so the name is quite appropriate.





Grist and such
This thing is absolutely different than anything I've seen before from Fullers. It has about 24% sugar along with another 4% maize and then a bunch of black malt and crystal making the base malt only contribute about 55% of the grist. The dark sugars are very high which seems to be more reminiscent of a mild than stout but the 8% black malt will really be seen.

Mash
Quite a low mash temp when you first look at it but with all the unfermentable sugars it makes sense. The FG is pretty high for the starting gravity so there will be plenty of body left behind making it not to thin.

Hops
Fresh hops and a decent amount making about equal OG and BU at 32. With all that black malt this will finish rather dry despite its FG.

Tasting notes
Nothing again boys as Ron just got this to me. I'll be making it this weekend hopefully and drinking it by next weekend.