Brewers in London and the Southeast often made beers called IPA. As a rule, these beers were weaker than the brewery's PA. Many of the IPA's were, like this one, specifically bottled beers. I can only think of one that still survives: Harvey's IPA. Where was I? Ah yes, IPA weaker than PA. Barclay Perkins PA had an OG of 1053º. A good bit higher than the 1046º of this baby.
The origins of these IPAs was the end of the 19th century. Whitbread introduced theirs in 1899. It was 1051º to their PA's 1058º. By the 1920's, that had dropped to 1036º and 1046º. As I'm sure you've noticed, Whitbread's versions were a good bit weaker than Barclay Perkins.
This is a very early version of Barclay Perkins IPA. It first appeared in 1927, replacing XLK (bottling). That was a bottled version of their Ordinary Bitter.At only 1038º, it was a pretty puny beer.
IPA was not a strong beer. Have I said that recently? It still bears repeating: IPA was not a strong beer. Do you think people will listen if I say it often enough?
On that happy note, it's over to Kristen . . . . .
Barclay Perkins - 1928 - IPA - Bottling | |||||||||
General info: Great little traditional IPA recipe. OG and BU are about equal. Lots of fresh hops of three different varieties. You'll notice the No3 Invert which is highly unusual for an IPA. A note in the log responds to this, "No2 saccharin not delivered in time. No3 used instead." They added a bit of caramel for a fine tuning of the color but it’s not worth it here. This beer tastes very much like Fullers London Pride. A little more bitter but very similar. | |||||||||
Beer Specifics | Recipe by percentages | ||||||||
Gravity (OG) | 1.046 | 57.4% English Pale malt | 0% | ||||||
Gravity (FG) | 1.010 | 17.6% American 6-row | 0% | ||||||
ABV | 4.80% | 13.2% Flaked Maize | |||||||
Apparent attenuation | 78.27% | 11.8% Invert No3 | |||||||
Real attenuation | 64.11% | 0% | |||||||
IBU | 41.2 | Mash | 90min@152°F | 0.8qt/lb | |||||
SRM | 10 | 90min@66.7°C | 1.68L/kg | ||||||
EBC | 20.0 | ||||||||
Boil | 2.25 hours | ||||||||
Homebrew @ 70% | Craft @ 80% | ||||||||
Grist | 5gal | 19L | 10bbl | 10hl | |||||
English Pale malt | 5.06 | lb | 2.304 | kg | 274.49 | lb | 106.05 | kg | |
American 6-row | 1.56 | lb | 0.709 | kg | 84.46 | lb | 32.63 | kg | |
Flaked Maize | 1.17 | lb | 0.532 | kg | 63.34 | lb | 24.47 | kg | |
Invert No3 | 1.04 | lb | 0.473 | kg | 56.31 | lb | 21.75 | kg | |
Hops | |||||||||
Cluster 7% 120min | 0.31 | oz | 8.8 | g | 19.31 | oz | 0.466 | kg | |
Fuggle 5.5% 60min | 1.04 | oz | 29.4 | g | 64.35 | oz | 1.555 | kg | |
Fuggle 5.5% 30min | 0.55 | oz | 15.5 | g | 33.93 | oz | 0.820 | kg | |
Goldings 4.5% dry hop | 0.21 | oz | 6.1 | g | 13.30 | oz | 0.321 | kg | |
Fermentation | 63°F /17.2°C | ||||||||
Yeast | |||||||||
1968 | |||||||||
Tasting Notes: Deep golden colour with a pillowy head. Herbal, spice and citrus notes. Ladyfingers and biscuits. Crips, clean, minerally, dry hoppy finish. Bloody spot on pint. | |||||||||
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12 comments:
Low gravity IPA. What a minefield. Here in the UK I subscribe to a newsgroup called "scoopgen" it's mainly for beer tickers but occasionally has an item of other interest. I got into an argument about IPAs (as ever someone was banging on about how they had to be about 6.5%-plus to be "authentic") and I raised the point that lower gravity IPAs had been around since the late 19th Century and suggested that the Victorians probably knew what they were doing. This produced a memorable riposte "who says the Victorians were right?". Sigh. Banging your head against such a wall of ignorance can be wearing at times.
From all the hundreds of logs I have seen and transcribed I can say that the vast majority of IPA's look like this one. For a 'current' version of an IPA I would think it would be much more like the Burton ales (K's) and the like. 1060's. 65bu. Quite a bit darker actually. Ron?
Kristen, when I finally get to see Bass's records, I'll be able to tell you what Burton IPA was like.
Interesting that they use a 30 min hop addition. I had assumed that adding hops in the "middle" of the boil was something that happened later than this. Am I mistaken? Seems like lots of the IPA recipes I've seen here are just a whole lot of hops boiled for 90 minutes.
Not really from what I remember. Most or two additions or 3. A lot of the BP logs indicate the first hops go in at make up and then at 90min and then 30min. Then a decent dose of dry hops.
Ron, you're missing a 'lets brew' tag, so this doesn't show up in the lets brew link. fyi
Dana, thanks for pointing that out. Now fixed.
Excellent site here!
I wanted to ask about the #3 invert. Is that some kind of sugar? Many of these old recipes have these "inverts" as ingredients--how can I reproduce them in my own homebrew?
I'm excited about reading the rest of your blog archives.
--Alan
Larry, No. 3 is a dark invert sugar. Mostly used in Dark Mild and Porter or Stout.
Kristen has posted links to where he explains how to make invert sugars. Not sure where it is though. I'll have a look.
Larry,
http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert
Kristen, I'm a bit confused about the yeast suggestions. Isn't Nottingham too neutral campared to WLP002 and London ESB?
Little update. I just realized this recipe was taken from Mitch Steele's book about IPA, and Mitch seems to recommend the same yeast in pretty much all historical recipes. So now I'm gonna change my question and redirect it to you Ron: I've noticed you use Wyeast 1099 in every Barclay Perkins recipe. Why is that? Oh, and another thing if you allow me. Considering they Fermentis saf-04, and Windsor, Nottingham and ESB from Lallemand are the only options in my country right now, would saf-04 be the best substitution? I understand both yeasts (I mean 1099 and 04) came from Whitbread, but they aren't the same, given that one is the "A" strain, and the other is the "B" strain.
Thank you so much in advance Ron. I'm entering in the world of historical recipes, but I'm having struggles with the ingredients available in here.
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