Thomas Usher's beers in the 1930's (part two)

I'm really glad I pulled my finger out and had a proper look at those Usher brewing records from the 1930's. They've answered a lot of questions. And there was an extra special bonus: I found a Scottish Brown Ale recipe.

I can now say, without fear of contraception, that I know what that Amber Ale was. It's not difficult to work out. Usher only brewed two beers with a gravity of 1040º: Mild Ale and PA 60/-. There's a good reason why it can't be the Mild. That's way too dark, with all sorts of dark sugar in it. You expect that, since it was parti-gyled with the Stout. My suspicion is confirmed: Amber Ale is PA 60/- with less caramel.

I'm really excited about the Brown Ale. They have a habit of not turning up in brewing books because of the way many breweries produced them. Basically by fiddling with another beer, usually Mild. Usher's is different, and all the more fascinating for that. It's full of sugary goodness, as we'll discover next time when I go through the grists in the agonising detail that must surely one day drive you to dive off the top of a multi-storey car park. It was parti-gyled with another iteration of Mild Ale.

The four Pale Ales and the IPA are, unsurprisingly, basically the same beer. They were parti-gyled in all sorts of combination. IPA was a newcomer to the product range in the early 1930's. I can see why they might introduce a lower-gravity beer - hard times and all that. But why call it IPA? I think I know the answer: because that's what the punters expected an IPA to be like, a light Pale Ale.

Going through the pages of the brewing log has given me a good idea of how much of each beer Usher brewed. The vast majority was PA 60/-, followed by IPA and PA. I've added up how much of each beer was brewed in four pages of the brewing book, covering 1st October to 20th November. Here's a nice little table of the results:

Beer	Barrels	%age of total
Brown Ale	35	0.63%
IPA	1067.5	19.32%
MA	92.5	1.67%
PA	573	10.37%
PA 60/-	3442.5	62.32%
PA 70/-	240.25	4.35%
PA 80/-	38.5	0.70%
Stout 80/-	34.75	0.63%
Total	5524	100.00%

Usher didn't use dark malts at all as far as I can tell. The darkest was crystal, which went in the Brown Ale, Mild Ale and Stout. All the real colour in these three came from dark sugars.

Next time we'll be looking at the grists of these beers.

Thomas Usher's beers in the 1930's
Date	Year	Beer	Style	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)
20th Nov	1931	Brown Ale	Brown Ale	1055	1016.5	5.09	70.00%	4.26	1.89	1.75	1			60º	º
13th Oct	1931	IPA	IPA	1032	1011	2.78	65.63%	5.98	0.78	1.75	2	2.5		60º	67º	7
2nd Oct	1931	MA	Mild	1040	1015.5	3.24	61.25%	3.75	0.62	2	1			60º	67º	7
6th Oct	1931	PA	Pale Ale	1034	1012	2.91	64.71%	5.98	0.83	1.75	2	2.5		60º	67º	7
6th Oct	1931	PA 60/-	Pale Ale	1040	1013	3.57	67.50%	5.98	0.97	1.75	2	2.5		60º	67º	7
5th Oct	1931	PA 70/-	Pale Ale	1047	1013.5	4.43	71.28%	5.98	1.43	1.75	2	2.25	2.5	60º	67º	6
12th Nov	1931	PA 80/-	Pale Ale	1055	1012.5	5.62	77.27%	6.02	1.35	1.75	2	2.25	2.5	60º	67º
2nd Oct	1931	Stout 80/-	Stout	1052	1023	3.84	55.77%	3.75	0.80	2	1			60º	67º	7
Source:
Thomas Usher brewing record document TU/6/6 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive