1909 Beer Style Guide - X Ale

Time for a sneak preview of mine and Kristen's 1909 Beer Style Guide.

This is part of a sample chapter. In addition to the text here, the book version will include a recipe or two. Your comments are welcome.



X Ale

X Ale, or standard Mild Ale, was the most popular type of beer. It formed over 50% of output, even of some of the large London Porter breweries like Whitbread and Truman.

Amongst the London brewers there was a trend to brew a much reduced range of X and K Ales. XX and XXX were dropped. Mostly just the weakest remained, X. The stronger slots were left to Stock Ales, KK and KKK. Increasingly, the Stock Ales were referred to as Strong Ales and X Ales as Mild Ales. This relationship would last little changed until the 1950's.

For example, in 1881, Whitbread brewed X, XL and XX. By 1910, only X remained. The gravity of X was starting to move downwards, too. Whitbread's was 1061º in 1881, but was down to 1057º in 1910. Much worse was to happen after 1914, when Mild Ales bore the brunt of gravity cuts.

X Ales had pretty simple recipes: pale malt and sugar. Though some brewers had taken advantage of the 1880 Free Mash Tun Act to use adjuncts like maize or rice. No modern Mild bears much resemblance to such Ales. Colour mostly came from dark No.3 invert sugar or caramel. Sometimes small amounts of amber or black malt were used, but this was more the exception than the rule.

What differentiated Mild from Pale Ale wasn't colour or gravity, but a lower hopping rate and higher FG which made them maltier, sweeter and fuller-bodied.

X Ales were hopped at a rate of 7 to 8 pounds per quarter in the 1880's, falling to 5 to 6 pounds per barrel by 1910. PA and IPA were hopped at about double that rate.

Surprisingly, Bitters like PA and IPA generally had a lower percentage of malt in the grist than X Ales. Whitbread's X had 10% sugar in the grist, their PA and IPA 20%. This, too, must have helped Mild Ales to taste more full-bodied than the Bitters.

X
OG:	1050 – 1057º
FG:	1009 - 1018 º
ABV:	5 – 6%
Apparent attenuation:	70 – 85%
EBC:	40 - 90
lbs hops per barrel	1 – 1.5
IBU:
Grist:	English 2-row pale malt, foreign 6-row pale malt, English mild malt, crystal malt, amber malt, black malt, No.3 invert sugar, caramel, maize
Hops:	Mid Kent, East Kent, Worcester, Oregon, California.

Noakes 1915 X
Malt
Californian pale malt	11%
English 2-row pale malt	57%
black malt	0.5%
crystal malt	5%
No.3 invert sugar	25%
CDM sugar	1%
Hops	100%
Californian hops	50%
Oregon hops	50%

Fuller's 1910 X
Malt
Californian 6-row pale malt	18%
Australian pale malt	17%
English 2-row pale malt	36%
No.1 invert sugar	9%
No.3 invert sugar	10%
luscious priming sugar	4%
caramel	0.64%
flaked maize	6%
Hops
East Kent hops	45%
Mid Kent hops	45%
Oregon yearling hops	10%

Barclay Perkins 1906 X
Malt
Californian 6-row pale malt	25%
English 2-row pale malt	54%
No.3 invert sugar	10%
maize	11%
caramel	0.10%
Hops
Worcester hops	33%
American hops	33%
Mid Kent yearling hops	33%

Barclay Perkins 1914 X
Malt
Indiian 6-row pale malt	10%
English 2-row mild malt	14%
English 2-row pale malt	39%
amber malt	7%
No.3 invert sugar	20%
maize	10%
caramel	0.12%
Hops
Mid Kent hops	33%
East Kent hops	33%
Mid Kent yearling hops	33%

Whitbread 1914 X
foreign 6- row pale malt	32%
English 2-row pale malt	61%
No.3 invert sugar	7%
Pacific hops	22%
Mid Kent hops	78%

Fuller's 1910 X
Malt
Californian 6-row pale malt	18%
Australian pale malt	17%
English 2-row pale malt	36%
No.1 invert sugar	9%
No.3 invert sugar	10%
luscious priming sugar	4%
caramel	0.64%
flaked maize	6%
Hops
East Kent hops	45%
Mid Kent hops	45%
Oregon yearling hops	10%