It's getting dead exciting now, as we see to what extent brewers have embraced the freedom to use whatever ingredients they choose.
Which, in the case of Tetley, is not at all. Which isn't to say that they haven't changed their grists. They're still all malt, but have moved from 100% pale malt to a mixture of pale and mild malt. How exciting. I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight.
The London Milds have grists all over the shop. They don't even all use pale malt as a base. Fullers go for an amber malt base, in one Barclay Perkins beer, it's white malt. Then there are the special malts: brown in one Barclay Perkins beer, crystal in another. Barclay Perkins also have flaked rice in one beer, the only adjunct to show up.
Not even sugar is a constant. A couple of the examples from Barclay Perkins contain none. Unfortunately, it isn't specified what most of them are. My guess would be No. 2 invert, but I could be wrong.
The Barclay Perkins recipes are an odd bunch, with by far the widest range of ingredients. It looks to me like they were still experimenting. I was so shocked to see all that brown malt in one that I went back to the original log to check. Definitely brown malt.
You may have noticed that I've changed the name of one of the Truman beers from X Ale to D Ale. Just me not reading the log properly. It seems that their slightly weaker Mild did have a name of its own.
What does all this tell us? That Mild recipes were in a period of flux with new ingredients being tried out. It settled down again later, with grists from different breweries coming more into line. But we'll see that as we progress through the decades with Tetley Mild as our guide.
In terms of hop sources, Tetley are about in the middle of the pack. They use ones from Germany (Altmark and Alsace), Austria (Bohemia) and the two main English regions (Kent and Worcester). Fullers, with all English hops and Whitbread with English and Bavarian hops are the most conservative. While Barclay Perkins and Truman both went for a combination of English and American hops.
It demonstrates nicely how British brewers sourced hops from all over the world.
That's it for now. But I'll be back soon with the 1890's.
| Tetley Mild grists in 1888 | ||||||||
| Date | Year | Beer | OG | FG | ABV | pale malt | MA malt | hops |
| 10th May | 1888 | X | 1046.0 | 1016.6 | 3.88 | 75.00% | 25.00% | Kent, Alsace and Altmark hops |
| 11th May | 1888 | X | 1046.0 | 1016.1 | 3.96 | 75.00% | 25.00% | Kent, Alsace and Altmark hops |
| 11th May | 1888 | X1 | 1053.7 | 1016.6 | 4.91 | 37.50% | 62.50% | Kent, Alsace and Altmark hops |
| 11th May | 1888 | X2 | 1062.6 | 1016.6 | 6.08 | 37.50% | 62.50% | Kent, Alsace and Altmark hops |
| 9th May | 1888 | X2 | 1063.2 | 1018.8 | 5.86 | 50.00% | 50.00% | Kent, Worcester, Altmark and Alsace hops. |
| 14th May | 1888 | X2 | 1063.2 | 1016.6 | 6.16 | 37.50% | 62.50% | Kent, Alsace and Altmark hops |
| 13th Jun | 1888 | X3 | 1071.2 | 1016.1 | 7.29 | 49.49% | 50.51% | Kent, Worcester and Bohemian hops. |
| Source: | ||||||||
| Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service document number WYL756/44/ACC1903 | ||||||||
| London Mild grists 1886 - 1888 | |||||||||||||||
| Date | Year | Brewer | Beer | OG | FG | ABV | pale malt | brown malt | amber malt | crystal malt | white malt | no. 1 sugar | other sugar | flaked rice | hops |
| 28th Dec | 1886 | Barclay Perkins | X | 1060.0 | 1012.2 | 6.33 | 3.90% | 74.13% | 11.56% | 10.40% | Farnham and MK Hops | ||||
| 24th Jun | 1886 | Barclay Perkins | X | 1064.0 | 1015.0 | 6.49 | 72.57% | 27.43% | American and MK hops | ||||||
| 21st May | 1886 | Barclay Perkins | XX | 1076.0 | 1022.7 | 7.05 | 100.00% | EK and Worcester hops | |||||||
| 17th Aug | 1886 | Barclay Perkins | XX | 1076.0 | 1022.4 | 7.09 | 85.71% | 14.29% | American and EK hops | ||||||
| 1st Mar | 1888 | Whitbread | X | 1060.7 | 1016.9 | 5.79 | 92.31% | 7.69% | Bavarian and English hops | ||||||
| 1st Mar | 1888 | Whitbread | XK | 1068.1 | 1020.8 | 6.27 | 92.31% | 7.69% | Bavarian and English hops | ||||||
| 23rd Apr | 1887 | Fuller | X | 1054.6 | 1020.5 | 4.51 | 73.69% | 26.31% | Worcester and Kent hops | ||||||
| 23rd Apr | 1887 | Fuller | XX | 1064.8 | 1023.3 | 5.50 | 73.69% | 26.31% | Worcester and Kent hops | ||||||
| 12th Jul | 1886 | Truman | D Ale | 1052.6 | 88.48% | 11.52% | American and English hops | ||||||||
| 12th Jul | 1886 | Truman | X Ale | 1058.7 | 88.48% | 11.52% | American and English hops | ||||||||
| 18th May | 1886 | Truman | X Ale | 1058.7 | 86.78% | 13.22% | American, Californian and Kent hops | ||||||||
| Sources: | |||||||||||||||
| Whitbread brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number LMA/4453/D/01/053. | |||||||||||||||
| Fullers brewing record held at the brewery. | |||||||||||||||
| Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives document number B/THB/C/166. | |||||||||||||||
| Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives document numbers ACC/2305/1/583 and ACC/2305/1/584. | |||||||||||||||
I keep meaning to do a full post on an article I found in the old "Allgemeine Hopfen-Zeitung" from before the First World War. It basically says in rather scathing terms that English brewers can’t get enough hops and don’t give a shit about the quality of them as long as they can get the bitterness they need in their beer.
ReplyDeleteAmerican Hops?
ReplyDeletePrimarily cluster, I guess?
Any indication for sure?
I think that article from before the First World War does attest to an important point, which is that above all, hops must be bitter. You can dispense with aroma, as most genuine porter did (yes they dry-hopped some export stout but that was atypical).
ReplyDeleteMild ale didn't care much about aroma. Pale ale can suffer without bouquet, but beer of any style first needs bitterness, to survive, or did in the pre-pasteurization era.
The hop's amazing capacity to preserve beer was proven to me recently. I opened a very lively bottle-conditioned local ale brewed with all-Ontario ingredients, and the hops were clearly added in very large amounts. The beer was hugely bitter, a lovely pale ale that I'm sure resembled many 1800's originals.
I drank some from the bomber and then closed it with one of those black plastic-and-rubber stopper corks, the kind made in Germany that work very well and last forever.
I put it away and forgot about it.
Two or three weeks later I saw it at the back of that part of my beer bunker (it's under the sink in the second bathroom), and the closure had blown off from the pressure.
I tasted the beer just for fun albeit it must have sat at warmish room temperature for a week or two open to the air. Unlike previous situations where this had happened, the beer was fresh as a daisy! It had lost a lot of carbonation but was in no way sour or oxidized. Thus the amazing power of the magic cone, as Michael Jackson called it.
And that is why they wanted the alpha acids, it is a sine qua non of making good beer, i.e., beer that will last any appreciable amount of time. Anything else including what the Brits viewed at times as punky American taste or second-rate Continental flavour paled to the first duty of hops: that they be bitter and be in sufficient amount to make beer what it is at bottom.
Gary