Let's Brew Wednesday - 1948 Portsmouth and Brighton United Breweries Pompey Royal

Bit of a long title this time. As you can see from the label, the brewery themselves branded it just United.

First a word of thanks. This recipes isn't based on a record that I excavated with my own bare hands from the archives. Someone else did the mining work this time. David at Quaffer. This is turning out to be an easy day for me, because he's also written about the history of Pompey Royal. I'm feeling all superfluous.

Looking at the label, you'll notice that the brewery described this beer as a Golden Ale. What a modern term. One I'd have associated with just the last 20 years. But, as I've often told you before, there's very little that's genuinely new in the beer world.

Don't expect me to come up with any specific style for this. Strong Ale will do for me. Nice and vague.

The modern version of Pompey Royal doesn't have much in common with this. More a strongish Pale Ale. It's also moved around several breweries of the former Whitbread group over the years.

1948 is an odd date to introduce a strong beer. Average gravity was it its nadir in 1947 and 1948, under 1033º. While it crept back up a little, but got stuck at 1037º in 1951 and stayed there until 1993. The late 1940's were a pretty grim time in Britain. Shortages, rationing, smashed up cities and the camaraderie of the war years fading. I'm glad I didn't grow up then.

I've put the sexiest numbers from the period into a little table for you:

British beer 1946 - 1947
UK	1946	1947	1948	1949	1950
Production (bulk barrels)	32,650,200	29,261,398	30,408,634	26,990,144	26,513,997
Exports (bulk barrels)	187,418	109,680	205,098	254,147	221,210
Exports (standard barrels)	150,099	85,660	179,120	226,215
Imports (bulk barrels)	929,028	860,161	863,855	875,548	1,018,603
Average OG	1034.72	1032.59	1032.66	1033.43	1033.88
Net excise receipts (pounds)	295,305,369	250,350,829	264,112,043	294,678,035	263,088,673
Source:
Brewers' Almanack 1955, pages 50 and  57.

In case you're wondering about the beer imports, that's pretty much all Guinness from the Irish Republic. Bugger all from anywhere else.






Like I said, most of my work has been done for me today.  That's me done. I think I can see Kristen just coming around the corner  . . . . . yes, there he is . . . . .

Kristen’s Version:

Notes: This one has been around since the forties but has changed quite a bit. This version is much higher in everything than the current one brewed by Oakleaf. They used the same pale malt from two different lots so feel free to use a single malt or two. Maris otter and golden promise would work lovely here. You’ll also notice the malt extract. They used a mix of EDME and Fiona diastatic malt extracts they added to the mash tun to help the mash along. For us, we don’t need the enzymes but I would suggest something amber in color. You can completely replace it with more malt if you’d like. Shouldn’t make a difference at the low levels you see. The hops were pretty much all Kentish Goldings, all very fresh, with a butte loade going into the dry hop.