Wednesday 26 December 2012

Robert Younger's beers in the 1940's and 1950's

I hope you're enjoying this series as much as I am. And we haven't even got to the most exciting bit yet: Robert Younger's recipes.

Today's beers, at least the Pale Ales, nicely frame WW II. I'm pretty sure that the 1940 Pale Ale is also 60/- PA. It is only 0.25 of a degree lower than the 60/- PA from 1939 we looked at last time. It highlights nicely the effect on beer gravity of the war. Average gravity continued to drop after WW II, hitting its nadir in 1947:


Average OG 1939 - 1951
Year OG
1939 1040.93
1940 1040.62
1941 1038.51
1942 1035.53
1943 1034.34
1944 1034.63
1945 1034.54
1946 1034.72
1947 1032.59
1948 1032.66
1949 1033.43
1950 1033.88
1951 1036.99
Source:
Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 50

It's revealing that the 1947 80/- is a similar gravity to the 1940 60/-. Basically the war had knocked 20 bob off Pale Ales.

How can you call a beer of 1028º a Stout? With a lot of cheek and the hope that the punters have forgotten that the word means "strong" in a beer context. The example from 1953 is a bit better in terms of gravity, but a pathetic degree of attenuation leave it even weaker in alcohol terms, a puny 2.38% ABV.  Folköl, really.

And finally we have those Strong Ales. A bit weak compared to some of the others we've seen from Scottish breweries. The colour of the second, 16 + 40, is dark. Very dark. Just short of Stout territory.

The next part of this series will be dead, dead exciting. That's when I open up Robert Younger's brewing records and take a peek inside. Because there was something odd about the way they brewed. Logical, in a twisted way, but still odd.


Robert Younger's beers in the 1940's and 1950's
Year Beer Style package FG OG colour ABV App. Atten-uation
1940 Pale Ale Pale Ale bottled 1008 1037.75 3.90 79.47%
1946 60/- Ale Pale Ale bottled 1008 1028.5 2.65 71.93%
1946 60/- Ale Pale Ale bottled 1011 1027.5 2.19 61.82%
1946 60/- Ale Pale Ale bottled 1006 1027.5 2.79 78.18%
1947 80/- Ale Pale Ale bottled 1010 1038.5 3.76 75.32%
1947 Stout Stout draught 1008 1028 2.66 73.21%
1953 Sweet Stout Stout bottled 1017 1035.7 1 + 12 2.38 51.82%
1948 Strong Ale Strong Ale bottled 1015 1048 4.34 69.79%
1953 Strong Ale Strong Ale bottled 1017 1066.3 16 + 40 6.45 74.66%
Sources:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002

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