Coloured Malts

The results of my little poll on articles from the Journal of the Institute of Brewing are in. Guess what won? That's right, coloured malts. How did you guess?

Coloured malts won by a considerable margin, receiving double the number of votes (six) or its nearest rivals (a three-way tie between: non-deposit bottled and cask beers, modern mashing and arsenic in beer).

But I'm not going to dive into the article straight away. I'm going to start with a few details from the Roasted Malt Act of 1842. I'd never realised all these restrictions existed. It demonstrates just how tightly regulated brewing and related trades were in the 19th century.

"AN ACT to provide Regulations for preparing and using Roasted Malt in colouring Beer.

(18th June 1842.)

ABSTRACT OF THE ENACTMENTS.

1. Prohibiting the roasting of malt for sale, or the selling thereof except by persons duly licensed.

2. Roasters of malt and dealers in roasted malt to take out a licence. — Penalty.

3. Duty on licences to be under the management of the Commissioners of Excise, who shall grant the same.

4. Roasters of malt to make entry of their premises and utensils.—Penalty.

5. Roasters of malt to mark their premises and utensils corresponding to their entry.

6. Officers of Excise empowered to enter the premises of roasters of malt.

7. Roasters of malt not to receive any other grain than unroasted malt, and dealers no other than roasted malt.—Penalty.

8. A malt book to be delivered to every roaster of malt and dealer in roasted malt, in which they shall respectively enter all malt received, roasted, and sent out by them.

9. Stock account of malt to be taken.

10. Book may be made up before taking the account, and malt in the cylinders may be included,

11. Malt not to be roasted at night.

12. A certificate book to he delivered to every roaster of malt, and all roasted malt to be sent out by certificate.— Penalty.

13. Brewers intending to use roasted malt to provide deposit rooms in which all roasted malt to be deposited, and the certificate delivered up to the officer of Excise.—Penalty.

14. All malt received by any roaster shall be roasted on his premises; and all roasted malt shall be sent out unground.

15. No roasted malt to be bought of any but a licensed roaster.

16. No maltster at his malt house, or within one mile of it, or any druggist or grocer, to be a roaster of malt or dealer in roasted malt

17. Power of Commissioners to except maltsters whose premises were within prohibited distance before 1st April 1842.

18. Roasters, &c. of malt subject to like prohibitions as to the custody, &c. of certain articles, &c. as brewers of, or dealers in, or retailers of beer.

19. Act may be altered this session."

They clearly didn't trust roasters and maltsters much. Weird that you weren't allowed to roast malt within a mile of a grocer. The similar restriction on druggists makes a chill go down my spine. It makes you wonder what they were getting from druggists to help with malt roasting. Couldn't have been anything pleasant. And I wonder why they weren't allowed to roast at night?

Let's Brew Wednesday - Lees 1952 Stout

It seems like ages since the last Let's Brew. Probably because it has been ages. I should have published this last week. But somehow managed to forget.

Lees Stout this time. For a long time, Lees didn't brew a Stout at all. When they did start making one again, it was a very different beer. The pre-war Stout had an OG of over 1050, you'll see this one is notably weaker. And a good bit more sugary.

English Stouts changed considerably during the 20th century. They became, weaker, less hoppy and sweeter. By the 1950's, Stout was also becoming pretty much exclusively a bottled beer. In 1956, Lees changed their Stout, upping the sugar content to over 40%. About a third of the sugar was in the form of lactose, which boosted the FG to 1024 and reduced the ABV to 2.25%. Many breweries did something similar, though some did still continue to brew drier, more attenuated Stouts. Ironically, around the same time Guinness did the exact opposite, increasing the attenation to make their Stout even drier.


That's me done, so over to Kristen . . . .

JW Lees - 1952 - Stout
General info: Stout! Really? Not really that stouty of a stout? Looks very much to me like a Guinness-y type stout with much less hop. Maybe more like a Murphys. Oats instead of flaked barley. No roasted barley!? Now how can it be a stout? 20% sugar? Ok, now this is looking more and more like a dark mild to me. Seems actually quite close to their mild. Where do we draw the line? More importantly, does it really matter?
Beer Specifics			Recipe by percentages
Gravity (OG)	1.038		52.6% English 2 Row			4.8% Oats
Gravity (FG)	1.011		5.7% Crystal 75L			20% Invert No1
ABV	3.59%		5.5% Chocolate malt
Apparent attenuation	70.85%		5.7% Brown malt
Real attenuation	58.04%		5.5% Black malt
IBU	17.5		Mash	90min@147°F		1.08qt/lb
SRM	51			90min@63.9°C		2.26L/kg
EBC	100.5
			Boil	1.75 hours
	Homebrew @ 70%				Craft @ 80%
Grist	5gal		19L		10bbl		10hl
English 2 Row	3.81	lb	1.732	kg	206.43	lb	79.76	kg
Crystal 75L	0.41	lb	0.189	kg	22.47	lb	8.68	kg
Chocolate malt	0.40	lb	0.183	kg	21.77	lb	8.41	kg
Brown malt	0.41	lb	0.189	kg	22.47	lb	8.68	kg
Black malt	0.40	lb	0.183	kg	21.77	lb	8.41	kg
Oats	0.35	lb	0.159	kg	18.96	lb	7.32	kg
Invert No1	1.45	lb	0.660	kg	78.64	lb	30.38	kg
Hops
Fuggle 5.5% 90min	0.41	oz	11.7	g	25.53	oz	0.617	kg
Fuggle 5.5% 30min	0.41	oz	11.7	g	25.53	oz	0.617	kg
Fermentation	63°F /17.2°C
Yeast	Manchester ale
	1318 London Ale Yeast III   -
Tasting Notes: Dark. Check that. Pretty damned dark. Big rich dark malt. Espresso, mocha, hints of cocoa and toasted bread crumbs. Touches of raisins and figs. Not thin but crisp. Quite mouth filling for being such a light beer. Side-by-side, it’s good from a bottle, really great from a cask. Simply, a delicious, elbowy little 'stout'.

St. Bernardus crisis

Ton Overmars is out of St. Bernardus Prior. "Het rooie is niet te krijgen, meneer." Damn. Another St. Bernardus crisis.

OK, it's nothing like as serious as the Abt Apocalypse. When Abt went missing from the Overmars shelves for more than a week. Trauma? A near-death experience, more like. Yet Prior plays its part in my drinking day. Sure, the first cap to pop when I pop in the door is an Abt's. Taking my coat off wouldn't be the same without it. But once my dm's* are parked and the second Abt is a whistling empty on the patio, I feel like a change of pace. Prior's perfect.

It has that St. Bernardusy thing going on. How would you describe that? Dead nice, that's it. And almost like Abt.

That's why panic set in when Ton told me the bad news. Aah, but he still had plenty of Pater. There was the solution. DIY Prior. 12+6 divided by two makes . . . . 9. That's close enough to 8 for me.

Now I wish I'd kept a real Prior for comparison. I reckon it's fairly close, judging from memory. (Which, as Mike will tell you, is a bit bollocky.) It'll do.






* they aren't real Doc Marten's. Solovair. Much better.

The St. Bernardus's:
6 Pater
8 Prior
12 Abt

Borefts Beer Festival

I missed the first Borefts Beer Festival. I was out of Holland at the time. No such hindrance this year.

Years ago I abandonned trying to take detailed notes at beer festivals. Spending the whole of my time scribbling seriously sucks the fun out of the experience. At least for me. I did take a few notes. Do you want to see them? Sure you do.



Marble Imperial Stout
            IPA
Närke Stormakts Porter
Mikkeller Black (Islay) - ridiculously boozy and Stouty. Right down my street.

That's the lot. Basically just a list of the first four beers I tried. I was having too much fun to write any more. Particularly with the Mikkeler Black. I had four or five of those. Usually such small glasses would seriously piss me off, but on this occasion I was quite pleased not to be drinking pints. I wouldn't have made back to the station if I had.

I won't bore you by listing all the beers available. Even if I could remember what they were. After a while I pretty much stuck with different versions of Mikkeller Black. All at a nice session-strength of 17.5% ABV. I just couldn't get me enough of that whisky goodness.

The rain. I almost forgot that. It absolutely threw it down a couple of times. A bit annoying, but nothing more.

A La Pinte du Nord

I was very briefly in Paris last week for work. Not expecting any free time, I hadn't researched any beer destinations. Then I found I had three hours to kill at Gare du Nord.

I know a couple of things about Parisian cafés. Principally that they're hideously expensive. But there's one handy rule of thumb: any café in a prominent position on a main road is likely to be at the top end of the price scale. So I went for a wander around the smaller streets, hoping to find somewhere vaguely affordable.

I did better than I expected. Not only did I find a place with something drinkable on offer, the prices were about the same as Amsterdam. Just 5 euros for a Chimay Blue. I took more than 90 minutes to drink it. That's record. A slowness record.

It's a handy place to know if you're waiting for a train. It can't be more than 100 metres from Gare du Nord. And they've got half a dozen draught beers and a dozen or so bottled. Two of the draughts I've never heard of: Gothic and Record. (Turns out the former is a Kronenbourg brand, the latter a Pelforth one.) Duvel and all three Chimays are the highlights of the bottles.



A La Pinte du Nord
38 Rue de Saint-Quentin,
75010 Paris, France.
Tel.: 01 45 26 11 89

Decline in number of UK breweries 1838 - 1900

I found this nice table of the number of breweries in the UK in the "Journal of the Institute of Brewing". I thought it might interest one of two of you. And if not- well, at least I've posted today.

Brewing licences issued 1838 - 1900
Year	common brewers	private brewers
1838	49,200
1870	32,287
1875	27,322
1879	22,278
1880	21,131
1881	15,707	71,876
1882	15,569	110,025
1886	13,308	95,301
1887	12,938	33,581
1890	11,364	25,281
1895	9,050	17,041
1900	6,447	12,734
Source:
"Journal of the Institute of Brewing, vol 7", 1901, page 64

Because no licence was required, the number of private brewers before1880 is not recorded. Private brewers included everyone who brewed but didn't sell their beer. Farmers, colleges, country houses and so-called "cottage brewers" (the rural working class brewing for themselves).

Private brewing never completely died out and, right up until their abolition in the early 1960's, private brewing licences were being issued.

Almost 50,000 breweries in 1838. Very impressive. That's far more than the total number of breweries in the world today. It puts the 700 or so in the UK currently into perspective.

What do you fancy?

I've always been a democrat at heart. Now's your chance to take advantage.

Hanging around in Paris waiting for my train - and the journey back itself - gave me plenty of reading time on Thursday. Enough to rattle through a whole stack or articles from the Journal of the Institute of Brewing. Ones from about 1900.

There was so much fascinating stuff that I can't decide what to post about first. This is where you come in. You decide for me. I suppose not so much democracy as indecision in action.

Here's a list of topics, tell me which you'd most like to hear about:

• a history of beer duty
• non-deposit bottled and cask beers
• modern mashing operations
• colour measurement
• coloured malts
• the use of flaked malts
• arsenic in beer

Go on. You decide. I can't be arsed.

Hops around 1870

Still busy. So another short quote instead of a proper post. I know. I'm a lazy git.

"There have been no small contests as to the part which hops play in the manufacture of beer. Some have been bold enough to contend that they possess no preservative qualities whatever, and only contribute flavour. The balance of opinion, however, is clearly on the side of hops being preservative; and whichever view be right, it is quite certain that their pleasant flavour has done more than anything else to make the beverage of which they are an ingredient so universally popular.

Hops, as is well known, are largely grown in the south-east of England, and even so far north as Worcestershire. Our climate, however, is just too cold and damp to produce the finest qualities ; and although the best Farnham Town hops are equal to any foreign growth, they are exceptionally good for England, while Austria and Bavaria can supply large quantities not inferior to our most superior examples. We understand that Herr Dreher and the great Bohemian and Bavarian brewers keep their hops unpressed, loose in bins like corn, not tightly packed in bags or pockets, as we do, and that the fact of the hops never having been pressed or artificially dried adds greatly to the delicacy of their aroma. Be this as it may, the repeal of the excise on hops, bringing with it that of the Customs' duty on foreign hops, has largely increased the facilities for using hops from America, from Belgium, from Alsace, and from other parts of Germany, while the acreage of English hops does not appear to be on the decline. The pleasant aromatic bitter of the hop is chiefly contained in a glutinous powder found between the scales of which the hopblossom is composed. Hops are ' dioecious' plants, having the male and female blossoms on different plants. The hop of commerce is the female blossom, slightly dried in a kiln or hop-oast, and packed in bags or pockets for sale."
"The Quarterly review, Volume 131" 1870, pages 136-136

Did you spot that? Another Anton Dreher mention. The stuff about the different way of storing hops is new to me. I'd assumed they were always pressed to reduce as much as possible contact between the hops and air.

It's right that this is the period when foreign hops began to be used more. They crop up more and more in the brewing record. mostly described as Bavarian, American or Alsace.

Whitbread K Ales 1837 - 1901

That was so much fun with the Whitbread Porter and Stout grists. So much fun, that do you know what I'm going to do? Exactly the same thing, an overly wide table full of numbers. But this time for K Ales.

Here you go:

Whitbread K Ales 1837 - 1901
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenuation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	dry hops (oz / barrel)	pale malt	brown malt	SA malt	PA malt	sugar
1836	KXX	1089.7	1032.7	7.55	63.58%	6.55	2.72	2	2	3	63º		100.00%
1837	KXX	1090.0	1032.7	7.59	63.69%	7.60	2.95	2	2	3	59º		100.00%
1841	KXX	1087.0	1026.6	7.99	69.43%	9.07	3.51	2	2		60º		100.00%
1841	KXX	1091.1	1038.8	6.93	57.45%	9.85	3.60	2	2	3	60º		100.00%
1850	KXX	1081.4	1030.5	6.74	62.59%	13.85	5.18	1.17	2	2	60º		100.00%
1851	KXX	1082.3	1030.5	6.85	62.96%	12.52	4.55	1.5	1.5	2	60º		100.00%
1861	KXX	1081.7	1033.2	6.41	59.32%	17.25	7.19	1.5	2		60º		100.00%
1861	KXX	1075.9	1028.8	6.23	62.04%	16.96	6.75	1.5	2		60º		100.00%
1837	KXXX	1098.9	1034.9	8.46	64.71%	7.64	3.24	2	2	3	59º		100.00%
1837	KXXX	1100.3	1033.2	8.87	66.85%	7.65	3.26	2	2	3	59º		100.00%
1837	KXXX	1098.6	1032.7	8.72	66.85%	7.49	3.29	2	2	3	64º		100.00%
1841	KXXX	1102.5	1029.9	9.60	70.81%	5.96	2.55	2	2	3	60º		100.00%
1841	KXXX	1100.8	1029.9	9.38	70.33%	9.42	4.13	2	2	3	60º		100.00%
1841	KXXX	1100.6	1029.9	9.34	70.25%	9.36	4.06	2	2	3	60º		100.00%
1841	KXXX	1101.9	1028.5	9.71	72.01%	9.09	3.78	2	2	3	60º		100.00%
1850	KXXX	1083.9	1026.3	7.62	68.65%	13.36	6.02	1.17	2	2	60º		100.00%
1851	KXXX	1090.9	1028.8	8.21	68.29%	12.50	5.25	1.5	2	2	60º		100.00%
1861	KXXX	1085.9	1031.6	7.18	63.23%	16.38	7.44	1.5	2		60º		100.00%
1837	KXXXX	1112.7	1036.6	10.08	67.57%	8.07	3.95	2	2	3	59º		100.00%
1876	KK	1072.0	1020.2	6.85	71.92%	13.13	4.46	1.75	2		58º	22.96	86.68%				13.32%
1877	KK	1072.9				16.02	5.23	1.5	2.5		57º		86.35%				13.65%
1877	KK	1073.4	1021.6	6.85	70.57%	15.87	5.44	1.75	2.58		58º		87.02%				12.98%
1880	KK	1076.2	1025.5	6.71	66.55%	12.44	4.36	2	2.33		56.5º		85.37%				14.63%
1890	KK	1075.3	1026.0	6.53	65.49%	14.27	4.88	2	2		57º			1.85%	84.57%	0.00%	13.58%
1901	KK	1073.0	1030.0	5.69	58.91%	12.00	4.03	1.75	2		57º		20.66%	1.65%	53.72%	10.74%	13.22%
1901	KK	1075.8	1028.0	6.33	63.08%	11.98	4.16	1.75	1.75		57º		21.01%	0.00%	44.54%	21.01%	13.45%
1901	KK	1073.8	1026.0	6.32	64.75%	11.98	4.05	1.75	1.75		57º		20.66%	1.65%	43.80%	20.66%	13.22%
1871	KKK	1082.0	1028.3	7.11	65.54%	14.23	6.05	1.5	2		58º		87.21%				12.79%
1871	KKK	1085.0	1035.5	6.56	58.31%	13.50	5.97	2.5			58º		84.45%				15.55%
1871	KKK	1080.3	1033.8	6.16	57.93%	14.16	6.14	1.5	2		58º		84.31%				15.69%
1877	KKK	1086.4	1034.1	6.93	60.58%	14.99	5.94	2	2.75		57º		88.02%				11.98%
1877	KKK	1083.9				14.89	5.94	1.5	2.83		57º		86.73%				13.27%
1880	KKK	1084.2	1028.0	7.44	66.78%	13.13	4.97	2.75	2		57º		85.42%				14.58%
1890	KKK	1085.6	1030.0	7.35	64.95%	14.16	5.76	2	2		57º	24		1.66%	83.98%		14.36%
1901	KKK	1082.8	1036.0	6.19	56.53%	12.00	4.58	1.75	2		57º		20.66%	1.65%	53.72%	10.74%	13.22%
1901	KKK	1085.3	1033.0	6.91	61.30%	11.98	4.68	1.75	1.75		57º		20.66%	1.65%	43.80%	20.66%	13.22%
1891	2KKK	1078.9	1026.0	7.00	67.07%	14.07	4.92	2	2		57º				86.21%		13.79%
1901	2KKK	1078.7	1033.0	6.05	58.07%	12.00	4.35	1.75	2		57º		20.66%	1.65%	53.72%	10.74%	13.22%
1901	2KKK	1082.8	1032.0	6.72	61.36%	11.98	4.54	1.75	1.75		57º		20.66%	1.65%	43.80%	20.66%	13.22%
Source: Whitbread brewing records

You know how I feel about analysis at the moment. I can't really be arsed with it. Except that you can see that the colour started to darken after 1890 with the introduction of dark malt to the grist. And how, after its introduction in the 1870's, how constant the percentage of sugar was at around 13%.

I case you'd forgotten what I've been banging on about recently, KK was in Edwardian times one of the standard draught beers in a London pub, sold under the name of Burton. KKK was a stronger version. Probably sold as Old Burton or Burton Extra.