England vs Scotland, part 3h: early 1850's Ordinary Stout

It's funny fun fun time again. As I ponderously plod through the muddy field of 1850's brewing. Will I ever make it back to the road?

Wacky and unconventional as I am, I've broken with the alphabet, skipping Stock Ale and moving directly to Stout. Don't despair (or sigh with relief), I will be returning to it. I'm just having arsing issues. It's all just a little bit too complicated. And Stout follows naturally on from Porter, which was part 3g, in case you've forgotten.

The fun part is making up new beer style names. Today's is Ordinary Stout. Or Stout between 1072º to 1087º. Why those specific gravities? Well, it's as rational as many of the official style guidelines: That was the range of English Stouts that gave me an average OG the same as the Younger's DBS I'm comparing them to.

To be honest, they are a fairly random and diverse bunch, those London Stouts. A mix of Single and Double, Running and Keeping, domestic and Export Stouts. That's reflected in the wide range of gravities and hopping rates.

You've probably noticed one slight problem with this set of data: there's only one Scottish beer. There's a very good reason for that. A disarmingly simple one. Younger didn't brew much Stout. I've 205 beers in my photos of this particular Younger's log. Only two of them are Stout. So be warned, the comparisons in this post are for amusement purposes only. Not that you'll be laughing much.

Here's the table. I'll leave you some time to digest it before pushing you further down the rutted cart track of analysis.

England vs Scotland early 1850's Stout 1072º to 1087º
Date	Year	Brewer	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenuation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fer-ment-ation temp	length of fer-ment-ation (days)
30th Jan	1850	Whitbread	KS	1072.6	1022.4	6.63	69.08%	22.00	7.09	1.5	2	2		63
24th Nov	1854	Whitbread	S	1072.6	1024.9	6.30	65.65%	11.92	4.01	1.5	1.5	2		63
13th Apr	1852	Whitbread	KS	1072.9	1026.3	6.16	63.88%	21.79	6.88	1.5	1.5	2		63
5th Dec	1850	Truman	M Keeping Stout	1073.1	1028.5	5.90	60.98%	11.8	3.87					65.5		12
15th Dec	1853	Whitbread	S	1074.0	1025.5	6.41	65.54%	13.51	4.52	1.5	1.5	2		63
8th Oct	1851	Whitbread	S	1074.2	1024.4	6.60	67.16%	12.16	4.21	1.5	1.5	2		63
11th Aug	1852	Whitbread	S	1074.2	1023.8	6.67	67.91%	13.85	4.57	1.5	1.5	2.5		63
17th Nov	1854	Whitbread	S	1074.2	1026.9	6.27	63.81%	4.02	1.30	1.5	1.5	2		63
16th May	1850	Whitbread	KS	1074.8	1025.8	6.49	65.56%	21.63	6.91	1.5	2	2		63
31st Oct	1850	Whitbread	KS	1074.8	1024.9	6.60	66.67%	21.53	7.45	1.5	2	2		63
17th Mar	1854	Whitbread	S	1074.8	1027.1	6.30	63.70%	14.99	5.00	1.75	1.5	2		62
25th Oct	1850	Whitbread	S	1075.1	1027.1	6.34	63.84%	11.83	4.03	1.5	2	2		63
5th Sept	1851	Whitbread	S	1075.3	1027.1	6.38	63.97%	10.86	4.56	2	2			63
21st Apr	1855	Whitbread	Expt S	1075.3	1023.8	6.82	68.38%	19.59	6.28	1.5	1.5	2		63
13th Dec	1850	Truman	M Keeping Stout	1077.3				13.5	4.31					64.5		8
16th Jul	1850	Truman	Running Stout	1079.8	1027.7	6.89	65.28%	12.2	3.99					68		7
11th Nov	1854	Whitbread	SS	1081.4	1025.5	7.40	68.71%	11.45	4.72	1.5	1.5	2		62
2nd Jul	1850	Truman	Running Stout	1081.7	1027.1	7.22	66.78%	12.7	4.26					65.5		7
24th Oct	1853	Whitbread	SS	1083.1	1030.5	6.96	63.33%	12.13	5.00	1.5	1.5	2		63
10th Jul	1850	Truman	Running Stout	1083.9	1027.7	7.44	67.00%	12.2	4.09					67.5		7
23rd Mar	1852	Whitbread	SS	1084.8	1034.1	6.71	59.80%	12.15	4.67	1.5	1.5	2		62
11th Nov	1852	Whitbread	KSS	1085.3	1029.4	7.40	65.58%	18.83	7.50	1.5	1.5	2		63
30th Jan	1852	Whitbread	SS	1085.9	1031.0	7.26	63.87%	12.47	4.89	1.5	1.5	2		62
19th Nov	1852	Whitbread	SS	1086.1	1029.9	7.44	65.27%	13.57	5.74	1.5	1.5	2		63
22nd Aug	1853	Whitbread	SS	1086.7	1030.7	7.40	64.54%	21.02	9.17	1.5	2			63
Average				1078.2	1027.2	6.75	65.26%	14.55	5.16	1.5	1.7	2.0		63.5		8.2
29th Oct	1851	Younger, Wm. & Co	DBS	1078	1015	8.33	80.77%	13.40	5.63	2.25				64		7
difference				-0.2	-12.2	1.59	15.51%	-1.15	0.46	0.71	-1.7	-2.0	0.0	0.5		-1.2
Sources:
William Younger brewing records document number WY/6/1/2/5 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
Whitbread brewing records document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/043, LMA/4453/D/09/044, LMA/4453/D/09/045, LMA/4453/D/09/046, LMA/4453/D/09/047 and LMA/4453/D/09/048 held at the London Metropolitan Archives
Truman brewing record document number B/THB/C/052 held at the London Metropolitan Archives

You'd be disappointed if I didn't cut the tape with hopping rates. I swear that I haven't selected the English beers to get this result. That lonely Younger's DBS has about a half pound more hops per barrel than the average of the London Stouts. Though 8 of the London beers have more than DBS. Like I said, for amusement purposes only, these comparisons. With that caveat: in the early 1850's Younger's Ordinary Stout wasn't less hopped than equivalent London beers.

There's the same problem with boiling times as with Porter. A single boil at Younger, multiple boils in London. I'm going to keep my mouth shut because I have nothing sensible to say.

Pitching temperatures come to my rescue again. It's so simple. There's bugger all difference between Younger's pitching temperature and the London average. 64º F seems to have been the favourite both sides of the border. Another case, I think, of Younger deliberately copying London methods. It makes sense. London brewers were the great Porter and Stout experts. In the early 1850's Younger's Ordinary Stout was pitched at the same temperature as equivalent London beers.

Attenuation and ABV are a bit of a turn up. Though please remember there's just the one Younger's beer. For once. the attenuation of Younger's Stout is much greater than the London beers. A whopping 15% more. Which naturally means that the Younger's ABV is also higher. But it could just be a one-off, this DBS. I'm keeping shtum again.

We're wrapping up with fermentation length. Which was a bit shorter for DBS. But there's bugger all data. Let's quickly move on to the rounding up.

Apart from the unusually high degree of attenuation of Younger's DBS, it looks pretty similar to the London Stouts. I think deliberately so. Especially when you learn that the grist contains something called "London brown".

There's one more equally futile Stout comparison to come. Then just the Stock Ales to go before we finally pull into later 1850's Junction. And repeat the whole tedious process again.