Tetley Pale Ale 1858 - 1896

As you can see, my laziness continues. I still can't quite make myself work through Tetley's Milds yet. So this time we're looking at their Pale Ale.

Was it a Pale or an IPA? Now there's a tricky question. Inside the brew house, the name was definitely PA. But all the advertisements call it East India Pale Ale. So what is it really? To be honest, I don't really care. Pale Ale, IPA - it's pretty much the same thing, despite what anally-retentive home brewers might insist.

As usual, I'll be making a comparison with my usual benchmark, similar beers from London. But, because this is Pale Ale we're looking at, I've thrown is some from Truman's Burton brewery, too.

There's phenomenon that you often see when a beer style is new. Initially, versions from different breweries and in different regions are very similar, clearly taking a beer as an example and cloning it fairly closely. As time progressed, versions from different regions begin to diverge and acquire their own character.

You can see this in the beers below. The Pale Ales from Yorkshire, London and Burton are generally very similar beers. The gravities, level of attenuation and hopping levels are all broadly the same. OG's in the low 1060's, 75-80% attenuation, 4-5 lbs of hops per barrel. Whitbread's hopping rate was a little lower and Tetley dropped theirs in the 1890's, but in general there's not much between the beers in terms of specifications.

There is some difference in the process. The boil times are quite short in London and quite long in Burton with Leeds in between. The pitching temperature looks much higher at Tetley but, as they didn't let it rise much during fermentation, there was probably little difference in the actual fermentation temperature. But because I don't have the maximum temperatures for Whitbread and Truman, we can't see that for certain.

I'm not sure what I've proved with this, other than that Pale Ales were much the same everywhere in the late 19th century.

Next time, we'll be seeing how the grists of these beers compare.

Tetley Pale Ale 1858 - 1896
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)
1858	A	1062.6	1015.0	6.30	76.11%	17.56	4.39	1.5	1.5		60º	70º	9
1858	A	1063.7	1023.8	5.28	62.61%	17.56	4.39	1	1		58º	69º	9
1858	A	1065.1	1029.9	4.65	54.04%	17.56	4.39	1.5	1.5		61.75º	70º	8
1868	PA	1060.1	1015.0	5.97	75.12%	18.00	4.60	1.5	1.5		59º	64º	7
1868	PA	1061.8	1012.2	6.56	80.27%	18.00	4.44	1.5	1.5		58º	65º	8
1868	PA	1058.2	1014.4	5.79	75.24%	18.00	4.14	1.5	2		62º	68º
1878	PA	1060.7	1011.6	6.49	80.82%	18.00	4.69	2			68º	69.75º	10
1878	PA	1056.5	1011.6	5.94	79.41%	18.00	4.37	2			68º	69.75º	10
1878	PA	1060.7	1011.6	6.49	80.82%	18.00	4.45	2			68º	69.75º	11
1878	PA	1060.7	1011.1	6.56	81.74%	18.00	4.57	2			68º	69.5º	10
1888	PA	1063.2	1011.4	6.85	82.02%	16.00	5.75	2			61º	68º	8
1896	PA	1062.9	1011.6	6.78	81.50%	13.92	3.64	2	2	2	60.5º	68.5º	9
1896	PA	1062.0	1012.2	6.60	80.36%	12.29	3.00	2	2	2	60.5º	68.75º	9
Sources:
Tetley brewing records held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document numbers WYL756/11/ACC1903, WYL756/16/ACC1903, WYL756/25/ACC1903, WYL756/44/ACC1903 and WYL756/49/ACC1903.

Whitbread Pale Ale 1865 - 1896
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	max. fermen-tation temp	length of fermen-tation (days)
1865	PA	1061.8	1012.7	6.49	79.37%	14.67	4.36				58º	º	7
1867	PA	1063.2	1017.7	6.01	71.93%	15.06	4.87				58º	º	6
1878	PA	1058.4	1011.1	6.27	81.04%	12.19	3.60	2.33			58º	º	10
1888	PA	1061.2	1018.8	5.61	69.23%	12.43	3.49	1.33	1.75		57º	º
1896	PA	1060.9	1015.0	6.08	75.39%	14.59	4.03	1.5	1.75		57º	º
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers

Truman (Burton) Pale Ale 1877 - 1887
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp
1877	P2	1062.3	1019.4	5.68	68.89%	19.00	5.01	3	3	3	58º
1877	P1	1066.5	1016.6	6.60	75.00%	19.00	5.39	3	3.25	3	57º
1887	P1 S	1066.5	1019.4	6.23	70.83%	17.44	5.00	3	3	3	56º
1887	P2	1061.2	1013.9	6.27	77.38%	14.70	4.45	3	3	3	58º
Sources:
Truman brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers B/THB/BUR/35 and B/THB/BUR/11.