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