Wednesday 27 February 2013

Tetley Pale Ale grists 1858 - 1896

Time for part two of my look at Tetley's Pale Ale in the 19th century. We'll be looking at their grists and how they compared to those of London and Burton Pale Ales. Sound like fun?

I'll repeat my word of warning about the naming of this Tetley's beers. Called PA in the brewing books, it was advertised and marketed as East India Pale Ale. The last Pretty Things Once Upon a Time release, 1878 East India Pale Ale, is a version of this beer. And very nice it is, too. The best Tetley's Bitter I've ever had. Even better than in the Black Dog in Cross Green.

There's something new about the table this time. I've included details of the type of hops used. Just to bulk out the material, really. If you've paid attention to what I've previously written about 19th-century Pale ales you'll know how dull the grists are. Just pale malt and sugar. Or, as in the case of most of the beers here, just pale malt.  They were an unfussy bunch back then, with a liking for simple recipes.

Lack of sugar is what distinguishes Tetley's Pale Ale from Whitbread's. The latter has around 20% sugar all the way through the time period covered. At Tetley's, sugar only appears in the 1890's, and then in a much lower proportion, under 10% of the total. Tetley's PA, in grist terms, looks closer to Truman's. Where only a small amount of sugar is used.

That's it for what I can say about the grist. You can see why I decided to include hop details.

Once again, the Whitbread beers stand out. They used exclusively English hops, though annoyingly didn't indicate which region they came from. This was specific to their PA. Their other beers included some American hops.

The type of hops Tetley and Truman used are more similar: Kent and Worcester hops with some foreign hops. Though the origin of the foreign hops was different: American hops in the case of Truman and European hops at Tetley. You can see a pattern that's typical of the 19th century in general. The more the century progresses, the more foreign hops that are employed.

Even with the hop stuff, I've not managed to stretch this out much. I'm done.


Tetley Pale Ale grists 1858 - 1896
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl pale malt no. 2 sugar hops
1858 A 1062.6 1015.0 6.30 76.11% 17.56 4.39 100.00% English hops
1858 A 1063.7 1023.8 5.28 62.61% 17.56 4.39 100.00% English hops
1858 A 1065.1 1029.9 4.65 54.04% 17.56 4.39 100.00% English hops
1868 PA 1060.1 1015.0 5.97 75.12% 18.00 4.60 100.00% Kent and Worcester hops
1868 PA 1061.8 1012.2 6.56 80.27% 18.00 4.44 100.00% Kent and Worcester hops
1868 PA 1058.2 1014.4 5.79 75.24% 18.00 4.14 100.00% Kent and Worcester hops
1878 PA 1060.7 1011.6 6.49 80.82% 18.00 4.69 100.00% Alsace, Kent and Worcester hops
1878 PA 1056.5 1011.6 5.94 79.41% 18.00 4.37 100.00% Alsace, Kent and Worcester hops
1878 PA 1060.7 1011.6 6.49 80.82% 18.00 4.45 100.00% Kent, Worcester and Bavarian hops
1878 PA 1060.7 1011.1 6.56 81.74% 18.00 4.57 100.00% Kent, Worcester and Bavarian hops
1888 PA 1063.2 1011.4 6.85 82.02% 16.00 5.75 100.00% Kent, Worcester and Burgundy hops
1896 PA 1062.9 1011.6 6.78 81.50% 13.92 3.64 92.69% 7.31% Austrian, Kent and Worcester Hops
1896 PA 1062.0 1012.2 6.60 80.36% 12.29 3.00 91.53% 8.47% Austrian, Kent and Worcester Hops
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 grists 1865 - 1896
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl pale malt sugar hops
1865 PA 1061.8 1012.7 6.49 79.37% 14.67 4.36 82.95% 17.05% English hops
1867 PA 1063.2 1017.7 6.01 71.93% 15.06 4.87 79.06% 20.94% English hops
1878 PA 1058.4 1011.1 6.27 81.04% 12.19 3.60 75.13% 24.87% English hops
1888 PA 1061.2 1018.8 5.61 69.23% 12.43 3.49 76.92% 23.08% English hops
1896 PA 1060.9 1015.0 6.08 75.39% 14.59 4.03 78.08% 21.92% English hops
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/030, LMA/4453/D/01/033, LMA/4453/D/01/044, LMA/4453/D/01/054 and LMA/4453/D/01/062.


Truman (Burton) Pale Ale grists 1877 - 1887
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl pale malt sugar hops
1877 P2 1062.3 1019.4 5.68 68.89% 19.00 5.01 100.00% American and Sussex hops
1877 P1 1066.5 1016.6 6.60 75.00% 19.00 5.39 100.00% American and Sussex hops
1887 P1 S 1066.5 1019.4 6.23 70.83% 17.44 5.00 100.00% Kent and Worcester hops
1887 P2 1061.2 1013.9 6.27 77.38% 14.70 4.45 94.44% 5.56% Kent, Worcester and California hops
Sources:
Truman brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers B/THB/BUR/35 and B/THB/BUR/11.

7 comments:

Andrew Elliott said...

Wow, Whitbread really used the sugar! around 25% at one point even... must've tasted cidery according to my BJCP notes.

GeorgiaBrewer said...

Even though it says 100% Pale malt, is that 100% from one source? Or perhaps 50% from Source-A and 50% from Source-B?

Same idea about the hops. Does "English hops" mean just 1 type?

Just wondering if the 1858 is a SMaSH beer...

johnk said...

Ron, I would really like to thank you for your current trend of providing the grists for the beers. For me, it makes a big difference because it gives an insight into what the beers would be actually taste like. I appreciate that some of them are really very simple, but that in itself is revealing.

I suppose I am in a fortunate position since I have been a member of Durden Park beer club for about 35 years and for a lot of that time we have been making Old British Beers. So I know the grists and get to judge the beers brewed from them.

So I personally would be very grateful if you continue, in fact if you were to find yourself short of things to look into, you could re-visit some of you older posts to fill in the grists.

I must say I am amazed and very pleased that you keep up your blog day after day, so long may it continue.

John Kellett

Ron Pattinson said...

GeorgiaBrewer,

in the second half of the 19th century beers almost always contaained more than one type of pale malt and more than one type of hops.

I'm not specific about the hops, because I have no more details. All I have is the name of two or three different growers/dealers.

The same is true of the malt. Usually there are two or three types, mostly just identified by the maltster, unless the barley was foreign, in which case it will say Smyrna or Californian or whatever.

The 1858 A had two types of malt: Leeds old and Armley old. I assume these were made by Tetley themselves. They had two maltings in Leeds close to the brewery and one in Armley, a suburb of Leeds.

The hops are a 50-50 split between Leney and Colyer, presumably hop dealers.

Ron Pattinson said...

johnk,

I'm never short of things to look into. But I will at some point publish more grist details of beers I've already looked at.

I want to write more about Mild Ale and part of that will be a big comparison of X Ales from different parts of the country.

ET said...

Been reading this blog for a while, but I never comment. Just want to quickly say, it's an invaluable resource, very much appreciated. That and poking fun of BJCP nerds is always fun.

Anyway, in my time reading this blog I've never noticed what would today be called something like a "hopping schedule" for beers such as these pale ales.

Is it that there was a period of time when hops were only added 1) At the beginning of the boil for bitterness, and 2) in the barrel for preservation? (or was dry hopping considered for flavor as well?)

Or is it that perhaps the hopping schedules were more complicated, but the details have been lost?

Ron Pattinson said...

ET, there's a simple reason: almost no brewing records include a hopping schedule. Other sources from the period suggest that there were usually multiple hop additions, the last being no later than 20-30 minutes berore the end of the boil.

The one exception are Bacrtlay Perkins records from the 1920's and 1930's. They have a full hop schedule. It's pretty complicated because there were usually two or three worts which were boiled saparately. Each of the worts had two or three additions.

Flavour was definitely important with dry-hopping otherwise they wouldn't have used good quality hops like Goldings and Saaz.