Wandering away from the recipe path. Sorry about that. Time to tell you about No. 7. Great name, isn't it? Like to know where it comes from? Then continue reading.
As I'm sure you can all remember, for many years Truman operated two breweries: the original in Brick Lane London and a second in Burton. The former brewed Porter, Stout and London Milds. The latter, opened in 1873, Pale Ales and Burton Ales. I won't insult your intelligence by reminding you that Pale Ales and Burton Ales were quite different beasts.
Truman used a similar system to Bass for naming their Burton-brewed beers. P1 and P2 were the Pale Ales. The Burton Ales were numbered, in descending order of strength, 1 to 8. At the start of WW I, the gravities were 1 1100+, 3 1091, 4 1076, 5 1070, 6 1062, 7 1056, 8 1048, A 1042. (I don't seem to have a number 2 anywhere.) No. 6 down were Milds, No. 1 was a Barley Wine. Don't ask me what style the ones in between are. Burton Ales. That's a good one. Let's just call them Burton Ales.
Everything changed in April 1917. When all the numbered beers were discontinued and instead beers called X, XX and XXX were brewed. Withe gravities of 1033, 1037 and 1044. After the end of the war, the Pale Ales returned, as did a few of the numbered Burton Ales: 1, 3, 4 and 7. Though the X Ales continued to be brewed, often party-gyled with 7.
XX, XXX and 7 were still around in the 1950's,. Three Milds of not too dissimilar gravities, 7 being the middle of the three. I'm not sure where or under what name these beers were sold. If you know, please tell me. The Brick Lane brewery continued to brew Mild for the London market.
One note about the recipe. There were two types of base malt. Palt malt that had been malted by Truman themselves and "Yenne HD". Yenne is the maltster and HD = high dried. Now high dried is a pretty vague term. In this context it probably means pale malt dried at a slightly higher temperature. So something like mild malt.
That's me done, let's go over to Kristen . . . . .
Truman - 1953 - 7 | |||||||||
General info: Truman Seven! What’s in a name right? It's gotta be seven times as good and no less! In all actuality the higher the number the less 'fantastic' the beer. 1 is great, 7 is not as great. This is a happy little X-type ale that relies entirely on a dash of crystal malt for its dark component. A healthy gob of colorant just to make sure its dark enough. Definitely a 'light' beer in every aspect. A mass produced beer that was cheap and very easy to drink! | |||||||||
Beer Specifics | Recipe by percentages | ||||||||
Gravity (OG) | 1.034 | 43.1% English 2 Row | 1.6% Caramel Colorant | ||||||
Gravity (FG) | 1.007 | 45.2% English 2 Row | 0% 0 | ||||||
ABV | 3.64% | 4.7% | 0% 0 | ||||||
Apparent attenuation | 79.70% | 5.5% Cane Sugar | 0% 0 | ||||||
Real attenuation | 65.29% | ||||||||
IBU | 18.2 | Mash | 90min@155°F | 1.2qt/lb | |||||
SRM | 22 | 90min@68.3°C | 2.52L/kg | ||||||
EBC | 44.1 | ||||||||
Boil | 1.5 hours | ||||||||
Homebrew @ 70% | Craft @ 80% | ||||||||
Grist | 5gal | 19L | 10bbl | 10hl | |||||
English 2 Row | 2.79 | lb | 1.271 | kg | 151.46 | lb | 58.52 | kg | |
English 2 Row | 2.92 | lb | 1.332 | kg | 158.67 | lb | 61.30 | kg | |
0.30 | lb | 0.138 | kg | 16.49 | lb | 6.37 | kg | ||
Cane Sugar | 0.35 | lb | 0.161 | kg | 19.23 | lb | 7.43 | kg | |
Caramel Colorant | 0.10 | lb | 0.047 | kg | 5.58 | lb | 2.16 | kg | |
351.43 | |||||||||
Hops | |||||||||
Fuggle 5.5% 90min | 0.53 | oz | 15.0 | g | 32.77 | oz | 0.792 | kg | |
Fuggle 5.5% 30min | 0.26 | oz | 7.4 | g | 16.19 | oz | 0.391 | kg | |
Fermentation | 65°F /18.3°C | ||||||||
Yeast | |||||||||
1275 | |||||||||
Tasting Notes: Biscuits and grain husks, sugary sweet crystal malt and rock candy, some apples with a hefty dose of pears, a little bitter and tannic astringency that really dries out in the very crisp finish. | |||||||||
Interested to see the label.I used to stay with my grandmother in Cleethorpes and the bedroom window overlooked Mill Road! I have no recollection of a bottling plant though.
ReplyDeleteThere seems to have been a lot of local bottling at one time. Why was this done rather than at the brewery and how was the bulk beer transported to the local bottling plant? I would assume it was in barrels but you know what assumption does!
looks like an interesting brew - any particular reason for 2 entries for 2 row?
ReplyDeleteAl, I do say why in my introduction: one was normal pale malt, the other high dried.
ReplyDeleteMarquis, I know that before WW II Bass and Guinness were sent to bottlers in hogsheads.
ReplyDeleteSo you do, oops.
ReplyDeleteJust what were the advantages to brewers of having their beer bottled by other concerns? They wouldn't be able to control the quality as carefully yet the bottles still carried their labels.
ReplyDeleteMarquis, let other brewers bottle their beers is how Guinness and Bass got into tied houses. And at one time Bass didn't bottle at all themselves.
ReplyDeleteBizarrely, Whitbread used to bottle lots of Bass and Whitbread and have other people bottling their beers.
Do Guinness still have loads of bottles? In Leeds, it was always bottled by Musgrave and Sagar. A former brewer that also owned a few pubs.