Shut up about Barclay Perkins: Burton and Old Burton

Sometimes it's hard to work out what beers in brewing records were marketed and sold as.

Which is where this little price list from Barclay Perkins comes in handy. It gives both the brewhouse and retail names of their beers.

KK was Burton and KKKK Old Burton. I bet you're wondering what those beers were like. Let's take a look, shall we?

First Barclay Perkins KK or Burton:

17th February Barclay Perkins 1933 KK
	type	qtr	weight qtr	lbs	%
pale malt	Dereham California	8.5	336	2856	26.33
pale malt	Dereham MA	10	336	3360	30.97
pale malt	Page SA	5	336	1680	15.49
maize		3	336	1008	9.29
crystal malt		1.5	336	504	4.65
sugar	Martineau No.3	6	224	1344	12.39
sugar	caramel			96	0.88
total		34.00		10848	100.00
	lbs	type	year	%
hops	90	Fox MK Fuggles	1931	33.09
hops	49	Rogers MK Golding Varieties	1930	18.01
hops	42	Saaz	1930	15.44
hops	91	Mainwaring MK Fuggles	1930	33.46
hops	0			0.00
hops (lbs)	272
hops (lbs/barrel)	1.69
hops (lbs/qtr)	8.00
dry hops (oz/brl)	3
boil time (hours)	2.25
Hopping:	at inch:	91	Mainwaring MK Fuggles	1930
		49	Rogers MK Golding Varieties	1930
	after 1 hour boil	90	Fox MK Fuggles	1931
	after 1.5 hour boil	42	Saaz	1930
pitching temp (ºF)	59
gravity (lbs barrel)	19.39
gravity (OG)	1053.70
gravity (FG)	1015.50
ABV	5.05
apparent attenuation	71.14%
barrels wort	161
extract (lbs/barrel/qtr)	90.6
extract	3080.4
Colour	74
Source: Barclay Perkins brewing records

Now KKKK or Old Burton:

16th February Barclay Perkins 1933 KKKK
	type	qtr	weight qtr	lbs	%
pale malt	Dereham California	5.625	336	1890	28.89
pale malt	H and D T PA	10	336	3360	51.37
crystal malt		1.375	336	462	7.06
sugar	Martineau No.2	3	224	672	10.27
malt extract		0.5	224	112	1.71
sugar	caramel			45	0.69
total		20.50		6541	100.00
	lbs	type	year	%
hops	110	Reeves MK Golding Varieties	1932	50.00
hops	55	Reeves MK Goldings	1931	25.00
hops	55	Rogers MK Goldings	1930	25.00
hops (lbs)	220
hops (lbs/barrel)	3.31
hops (lbs/qtr)	10.73
dry hops (oz/brl)	4
boil time (hours)	2.50
Hopping:	at inch:	55	Reeves MK Goldings	1931
		55	Rogers MK Goldings	1930
	after 1 hour boil	55	Reeves MK Golding Varieties	1932
	after 1.5 hour boil	55	Reeves MK Golding Varieties	1932
pitching temp (ºF)	58
gravity (lbs barrel)	27.65
gravity (OG)	1076.60
gravity (FG)	1028.00
ABV	6.43
apparent attenuation	63.45%
barrels wort	66.5
extract (lbs/barrel/qtr)	89.1
extract	1826.55
Colour	90
Source: Barclay Perkins brewing records

I was a bit surprised at how the grists differed. I'd expected the KKKK to be pretty much a scaled up version of KK. That's not the case. As you've no doubt noticed, KK was Californian malt, SA malt, MA (Mild Ale) malt, crystal malt, No.3 invert sugar and a touch of caramel. KKKK, on the other hand, contained Californian malt, PA malt, crystal malt, No.2 invert sugar and caramel.

And, despite being brewed on consecutive days, the hops used were almost completely different: all Goldings or Golding Varieties for KKKK: Golding Varieties, Fuggles and Saaz for KK.

At about 6.5% ABV, KKKK was about as strong as draught beer came in the 1930's.

And, because I'm such a generous soul, here are the equivalent beers from Fuller's. First their Burton, BO.

26th June 1935 Fuller's BO
	type	qtr	weight qtr	lbs	%
pale malt	English	19	326	6194	26.67
pale malt	Australian	19	326	6194	26.67
pale malt	Australian	16.5	326	5379	23.16
pale malt	Chilean	2.5	326	815	3.51
flaked maize		10	336	3360	14.47
sugar	glucose	3	224	672	2.89
sugar	Intense		224	338	1.46
sugar	Tri ?? BP		224	235	1.01
sugar	BP			37	0.16
total		70.00		23224	100.00
	lbs	type	year	%
hops	131	Pemfret	1934	24.95
hops	394	Suninens??	1934	75.05
hops (lbs)	525
hops (lbs/barrel)	1.6
hops (lbs/qtr)	7.50
boil time (hours)	1.5	1.75
pitching temp (ºF)	60
gravity (lbs barrel)	20.20
gravity (OG)	1055.95
gravity (FG)	1014.40
ABV	5.50
apparent attenuation	74.26%
barrels wort	515.5
extract (lbs/barrel/qtr)	93.94
Source: Fuller's brewing records

Now their Old Burton Extra:

26th June 1935 Fuller's OBE
	type	qtr	weight qtr	lbs	%
pale malt	English	19	326	6194	26.67
pale malt	Australian	19	326	6194	26.67
pale malt	Australian	16.5	326	5379	23.16
pale malt	Chilean	2.5	326	815	3.51
flaked maize		10	336	3360	14.47
sugar	glucose	3	224	672	2.89
sugar	Intense		224	338	1.46
sugar	Tri ?? BP		224	235	1.01
sugar	BP			37	0.16
total		70.00		23224	100.00
	lbs	type	year	%
hops	131	Pemfret	1934	24.95
hops	394	Suninens??	1934	75.05
hops (lbs)	525
hops (lbs/barrel)	1.9
hops (lbs/qtr)	7.50
boil time (hours)	1.5	1.75
pitching temp (ºF)	60
gravity (lbs barrel)	24.40
gravity (OG)	1067.59
gravity (FG)	1019.94
ABV	6.30
apparent attenuation	70.49%
barrels wort	515.5
extract (lbs/barrel/qtr)	93.94
Source: Fuller's brewing records

As BO and OBE were party-gyled with each other, the grist and hopping are identical.

So here are my definitions of 1930's Burton and Old Burton.

Burton: OG 1050-1055, 5-5.5% ABV, 80-100 EBC, 1.5-1.75 lbs hops/barrel.
Old Burton: OG 1065-1075, 6-7% ABV, 80-110 EBC, 2-3.5 lbs hops/barrel.

There. Two more new styles. What a productive day it's been.

14 comments:

Bill3 September 2010 at 03:56
Good stuff but does Papazian agree with your new style inventions? What I find so interesting is they would use 4 variations of a pale malt in recipes and the hops bill were a crapshoot. Is there a difference between Fox fuggles and Mainwaring fuggles? Did they ever make the same beer twice?
Ron Pattinson3 September 2010 at 04:30
First Stater, I'll have to ask Charlie if he agrees next time I see him.

They were just Fuggles from different producers or dealers.

They did make the same beer twice. Te whole point in using several types of pale malt (and several types of hops) is to even out any differences between different batches of ingredients. I assume large breweries who are very keen on cosistency do something similar today.
Oblivious3 September 2010 at 05:25
Fullers today by their malt from a number of different suppliers.
Anonymous3 September 2010 at 06:56
Nice the Burton recipes!
Jeff Renner3 September 2010 at 11:28
Any idea what the BP first hop additions "at inch:" mean? How long was this addition boiled?
Ron Pattinson3 September 2010 at 11:45
Jeff, good question.

My guess is: when all the wort was in the copper.

Inch usually refers to the level of liquid relative to the top of the vessel. It was how they measured the volume.

But I could be totally wrong. As it's a bit of jargon, that doesn't necessarily follow any logic.
Jeff Renner3 September 2010 at 16:59
The colon leads me to think that there is supposed to be a figure written in indicating the level of wort in the copper when the hops were added.
Ron Pattinson4 September 2010 at 02:45
Jeff, it always says "at inch" in the logs without any number after it.

"at makeup" is another one.
Ironman4 September 2010 at 09:16
Any idea what Pemfret or Suninens are? Should I just use goldings?
Ironman4 September 2010 at 09:18
Any idea what hops Fullers was using? Should a modern brewer substitute goldings?
Anonymous4 September 2010 at 20:03
Any tips about the types of weird sugars used by Fuller's? I think the sugars are pretty important for this style, and if the first recipes of KK and KKKK are pretty clear with the Martineau N.3, the Fuller's sugars seems odd, and not used in so great a quantity.
Ron Pattinson4 September 2010 at 23:28
Ironman, they'll be the dealer or the growers name.

During WW I, when the hop industry came under government control, the different types of hops were classified into four groups: Goldings, Golding Varieties, Fuggle's and Tolhursts. Though many of the hops classified as Golding Varieties had little relation to Goldings. The differentiation was based as much on the use of the hops as on genetic relationship. Hops with the most delicate flavour were put into the Golding Varieties group. Such hops were often used for dry-hopping, while stronger flavoured Fuggle's and the lower-quality Tolhursts were used in the copper.

There were two main types of Golding Varieties. The Cobb, selected from a garden of Canterbury Whitebines in 1881, which had a good flavour but poor preservative power. It was very good as a dry hop. The Tutsham cropped well but was of only average quality.

Tolhursts were a collection of low-quality, but heavy-cropping, varieties which were widely planted after WW I, when new hop gardens needed to be developed quickly. By 1940 it had gone out of favour on account of its poor flavour and preservative power and was no longer widely grown.
Ron Pattinson4 September 2010 at 23:30
ealusceop, Fullers used a lot of proprietary sugars. I'm not sure what they all are, but I would guess that at least some are dark caramelised sugar.
Thomas Barnes5 September 2010 at 12:54
@Ron: Big U.S. brewers do exactly as you suggest, using a whole variety of different hops (albeit at trivial levels) to bitter and flavor their products. Not only does it help to even out differences between batches, but also makes it easy to slightly tweak the recipe if one particular variety isn't available.

While it's seldom mentioned outright, I'd assume that historic brewers had a very keen appreciation of how hops degraded over time. It's very likely that they adjusted their recipes accordingly.

Do brewing logs show brewers using more hops when brewing using older hops?

Shut up about Barclay Perkins

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Friday, 3 September 2010

Burton and Old Burton

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