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Friday, 18 January 2013

Eldridge Pope beers in 1896 - 1897

Many thanks to Peter Symons for passing on photographs of Eldridge Pope brewing records, the source of today's post.

I'm assembling an impressive set of brewing record photos. They're staring to cover quite a lot of Britain. It's good to have material from outside London (and Scotland), if only for comparison purposes. And I never tire of finding new AK's. Especially one that managed to hang around as long as Eldridge Pope's.

Nothing particularly odd in there. Though there are three Pale Ales with quite a small spread of gravities: 1048.5, 1051.5 and 1057.6. If you look in the table of Whitbread beers that I've included for comparison purposes, you can se that Whitbread also had three Pale Ales, but with slightly higher gravities of 1050, 1055 and 1061. I'm not sure how significant that is. It would depend on the price charged for the different beers.

One difference that is significant is in the hopping rate of the two breweries' Pale Ales. Whitbread's contain about 50% more hops.

Eldridge Pope and Whitbread both have two Milds. The former's X Ale is 10 points weaker than Whitbread's, but the stronger Milds of the two breweries are almost exactly the same strength. The hopping rate is a little lower in the Eldridge Pope beers, but not by much.

Eldridge Pope's Strong Ale, XXXX, is roughly similar in strength to Whitbread's KK, but has a much lower hopping rate. I think I'm detecting a trend here.

When comes to the Stouts, things are the other way around. The Eldridge Pope versions are more heavily hopped. Even though their strongest Stout is hardly stronger than Whibreead's Porter.

Here are their beers from 1896 - 1897 in convenient table format:


Eldridge Pope beers in 1896-1897
Year Beer Style OG FG ABV App. Attenuation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermentation temp length of fermentation (days)
1896 AK Pale Ale 1048.5 1011.6 4.87 76.00% 7.33 1.50 2.5 2.5 2.5 60º 71.25º 8
1896 AK Pale Ale 1048.5 1011.9 4.84 75.43% 7.03 1.44 2.5 2.5 2.75 59.5º 69º 8
1896 BAK Pale Ale 1048.5 1011.9 4.84 75.43% 7.03 1.44 2.5 2.5 2.75 59.5º 69.75º 8
1896 PA Pale Ale 1057.6 1014.4 5.72 75.00% 10.5 2.56 2.5 2.75 59.5º 70.25º 7
1896 XX Mild 1049.0 1011.6 4.95 76.27% 4.36 0.91 2.5 2.75 60º 70.5º 7
1896 S Stout 1061.5 1026.9 4.58 56.31% 9.43 2.50 2.5 59º 70.5º 8
1896 LTS Stout 1051.2 1019.4 4.21 62.16% 10.37 2.23 2.5 60º 70º 8
1897 XXX Mild 1065.1 1018.6 6.16 71.49% 6.25 1.75 2.5 2.5 2.75 60º 74.25º 9
1897 XX Mild 1048.8 1013.9 4.62 71.59% 6.25 1.31 2.5 2.5 2.75 60º 69º 8
1897 XXXX Strong Ale 1074.8 1023.8 6.74 68.15% 8.95 2.82 2.5 2.5 2.5 60º 74º 9
1897 KK Pale Ale 1051.5 1014.1 4.95 72.58% 6.81 1.50 2 2.5 60º 69.5º 4
1897 XX Mild 1049.6 1012.5 4.91 74.86% 6.23 1.33 2 2.5 60.25º 70.5º 4
Source:
Eldridge Pope brewing records

And here are Whitbread's from the same period:


Whitbread beers in 1896
Year Beer Style OG FG ABV App. Attenuation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) boil time (hours) Pitch temp
1896 FA Pale Ale 1050.4 1012.0 5.08 76.20% 10.03 2.24 1.67 1.75 57.5º
1896 2PA Pale Ale 1055.4 1016.0 5.21 71.12% 13.99 3.64 1.5 1.75 57º
1896 PA Pale Ale 1060.9 1016.0 5.95 73.74% 15.06 4.28 1.5 1.75 57º
1896 X Mild 1058.2 1014.0 5.84 75.93% 7.50 1.90 1.75 1.75 60º
1896 XK Ale 1064.8 1015.0 6.59 76.86% 7.50 2.12 1.75 1.75 58º
1896 KK Stock Ale 1078.1 1030.0 6.37 61.59% 13.28 4.51 1.75 1.75 57º
1896 KKK Stock Ale 1087.4 1034.0 7.07 61.12% 12.88 5.12 1.75 2 57º
1896 P Porter 1059.6 1015.0 5.89 74.81% 7.79 1.94 1.75 1.75 60º
1896 C Porter 1059.3 1016.0 5.73 73.01% 6.81 1.85 1.5 1.75 60º
1896 CS Stout 1066.2 1020.0 6.11 69.79% 6.81 2.06 1.5 1.75 60º
1896 SS Stout 1085.0 1030.0 7.28 64.71% 9.53 3.98 1.75 2 57º
1896 SSS Stout 1094.5 1034.0 8.00 64.02% 9.53 4.42 1.75 2 57º
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/062 and LMA/4453/D/09/091


5 comments:

  1. Rob18 January 2013 at 05:23

    Do you have any grist information?

    Is there anything significantly different between the grain bills for the milds vs the pale ales?

    Based solely on those tables, I could distinguish a bitter from a mild based on hopping WITHIN a brewery, but the Pope PAs look a lot like the Whitbread Milds of the same size.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ron Pattinson18 January 2013 at 07:12

    Rob, I'll be posting the grists on Sunday.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gary Gillman18 January 2013 at 11:15

    The last Eldridge Pope XX mild has only 4 days fermenting time. Its next-to-last XX (still 1897), and the one in 1896, took almost twice as long on average.

    Why would this be? Their attenuations are 75%, 72%, and 76%, roughly.

    The fermentation must have gone off like a bomb for the last one. And for the first one, perhaps it went too far but in the usual time since for the pales of similar OG their attenuation is about the same.

    72% would seem to make most sense in terms of mild's character and as the XXs relate to the pales in this group, but perhaps they had trouble to hit it with regularity.

    Gary

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  4. Alastair20 January 2013 at 06:34

    Matt said"he huntsman on the Eldridge Pope sign bears an uncanny resemblance to the one who used to front a former Leeds brewery's advertisng.

    17 January 2013 07:19" I understand that the reason for this is that during the mid 1920s EP & Co were looking around for another trademark. They contracted to an advertising artist who had also been contracted by Tetley's. EP & Co didn't know that the artist had already designed the Huntsman logo for Tetley's and went ahead with it. So the artist got paid twice for effectively the same job. Tetley's found out and there was a bit of a gentlemen's agreement between brewers. EP threatened to sue the artist and got the TM on the cheap on the basis that it wasn't used north of Birmingham. The trademark was also altered so that EP's had a more "jolly" huntsman than Tetley's. (ERP's had a smile and Tetley's had a straight mouth. Interestingly enough, Carlsberg-Tetley bought the sole rights of use from EP in the 1980s for several million pounds and used EP as a distributor of their products. EP reverted to their old trademark of an E and P linked together in a shield. - MUCH MORE CLASSY ANYWAY. EP is no longer with us thanks to their board's "gambling" over the idea of being a pub company whilst selling the brewery off to a management buyout which eventually failed because they failed to win a continuing contract to supply EP pubs. The site in Dorch was sold to a company who was basically an asset stripper of breweries (see the sorry tale of Devenish's brewery)for redevelopment into retail and leisure. Thankfully, the architect has retained the brewery and this is to be converted into a hotel; the maltings into a theatre.

    With regard to Kristen's conversion of the EP AK "recipe", EP were the "Kings of Parte-Gyling". We at Dead Brewers' Society have EP brewing records dating back to when they were brewing at their original brewery in Dorchester. Some of the records show upto 6 - yes, six qualities not just from one mash, but from 4 copper lengths blended together. Interesting that the gravity was 1049; by the time 1941 it had reduced to 1030.5! and shared its gyle and hop bills with 3 others (KK @ 1033.6, LXX (a light mild) @ 1027.7 and BAK (which was Crystal Light Ale - bottled) @ 1032.7. A 1928 AK, though, was brewed from one gyle only as an "entire" (300brls. EP weren't a piddly little local brewery - they could slam out a helluvalot of beer and in the late '80s managed to produce 600 bulk brls of their horrid Faust Export lager in one day from four copper lengths (they only had two coppers)and 3 mashes using two mash tuns. Some feat, eh!

    Alastair - retired brewer (Tisbury Brewery plc)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Martyn Cornell21 January 2013 at 04:48

    Exactly the same 'Huntsman' design was used by Rayment's of Furneux Pelham, Hertfordshire, certainly as late as the early 1950s - my understanding was that all three brewers bought the right to use the design in their own area, quite legitimately, and it only became a problem when Tetley's began to intrude in Eldridge Pope's trading area, which is when Tetley's agreed to redesign theirs slightly.

    ReplyDelete