Wednesday 19 June 2013

Barclay Perkins Lagers 1925 - 1934 (part one)

Here are the first results of my last archive harvesting trip to London. Lots of lovely details of Barclay's Lager.

First let's take a look at the types of Lager Barclay Perkins brewed. In the 1920's, they brewed just two: Export and Dark.  Both had pretty respectable gravities for the period. Between 1925 and 1930 the average OG of beer brewed in Britain was about 1043º*). Dark and Export, at 1057 and 1050 respectively, were both well above the average.

A third Lager, romantically called Draught, appeared in 1932. That they could justify brewing a draught beer as well as bottled ones is an indication of the success of Barclay's Lager. As is the increase in the batch size of Dark and Export from 1932 onwards. In the case of dark, from 65 to 105 barrels, for Export from 125 to 200 barrels. It's worth pointing out that far more Export was brewed than Dark. Its batches weren't just larger, there were more of them. Draught Lager was weaker and closer to average gravity.

I've included tables of foreign Lagers for comparison purposes. A bit of compare and contrast never goes amiss.

It's easiest to find a comparable beer with Barclay's Dark. I'm pretty sure Münchener was the style they were aiming for. The Barclay's beer has an OG at the top end of the German examples. The FG is pretty similar to the German beers, as is the attenuation of around 65%. Barclay's Dark seems to match the specifications of the Munich style quite well.

Barclay's Export also looks similar to its German equivalent, this time from Dortmund. Though this time it's at the bottom end of the German range in terms of OG. The FG's match up pretty well, too, roughly between 1010º and 1014º. The attenuation is also pretty similar at 75-80%.

This is where it gets tricky as I'm not sure what style Draught is aiming for. If I hadn't seen the hopping rate, I might have said Pilsener.  But it's not very well hopped, falling between Dark and Export in terms of hops per quarter. It seems to match best with a German Lagerbier or a Danish Lager, though I'm not sure that I'd want to read too much into that.

The hopping rate is quite modest for all the Lagers. In 1924/25, these were Barclay's hopping rates:


beer lbs hops/qtr
X Ale 6
XLK (Ordinary Bitter) 7.5
PA 9
KK 9
KKK 14
Export Brown Stout 14
Russian Stout 16
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/611

You can see that the most highly hopped Lager, Export, only had the same level of hopping the least highly hopped top-fermenting beer.

The boil times are short compared to those of Barclay's other beers. Their Pale Ales and Milds were boiled for 2.25 and 2 hours. Their Porter, Stouts and K Ales were all boiled for more than 2 hours.

Unsurprisingly, the fermentations were much cooler than for their top-fermenting beers, which were pitched at 60-63º F and rose to 70-73º F. The logs from the 1920's indicate that they used Carlsberg yeast harvested from earlier brews. Later logs just say which previous gyle the yeast had been harvested from. It may well still have been Carlsberg yeast. I wonder if they were also culturing it, as was common in larger continental breweries.

Next time we'll be looking at grists and mashing techniques. Lots more surprises there.


Barclay Perkins Lagers 1925 - 1934
Date Year Beer Style OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl boil time (hours) Pitch temp max. fermen-tation temp length of fermen-tation (days) colour
16th Apr 1925 Dark Dunkles 1057.6 1020.1 4.96 65.10% 4.64 1.29 1.5 48.5º 14 88
4th Feb 1926 Dark Dunkles 1057.4 1019.0 5.08 66.90% 4.64 1.26 1.5 48º 12 84
12th May 1927 Dark Dunkles 1057.5 1020.2 4.93 64.87% 4.64 1.26 1.5 48º 15 80
6th Jan 1928 Dark Dunkles 1057.2 1020.7 4.83 63.81% 4.64 1.24 1.5 48º 15 80
13th Jan 1928 Dark Dunkles 1057.3 1020.4 4.88 64.40% 4.64 1.23 1.5 48º 15 84
7th Aug 1930 Dark Dunkles 1057.3 1019.4 5.01 66.14% 4.64 1.25 1.5 48º 15 88
15th Aug 1930 Dark Dunkles 1057.3 1020.2 4.91 64.75% 4.64 1.27 1.5 48º 15 88
7th Aug 1931 Dark Dunkles 1057.4 1019.7 4.99 65.68% 4.68 1.18 1.13 48º 15 84
11th Jul 1932 Dark Dunkles 1057.3 1021.0 4.80 63.35% 4.68 1.22 1.33 51º 12 84
12th Sep 1932 Dark Dunkles 1057.3 1021.3 4.76 62.83% 4.68 1.24 1.33 48º 15 86
24th Jul 1933 Dark Dunkles 1057.5 1016.7 5.40 70.96% 4.68 1.18 1.5 48.5º 16 84
9th Apr 1934 Dark Dunkles 1057.5 1020.8 4.86 63.83% 4.68 1.27 2.17 46º 52.5º 11 88
28th May 1934 Dark Dunkles 1057.5 1020.8 4.86 63.83% 4.68 1.19 1.5 46º 53º 12 80
9th Sep 1935 Dark Dunkles 1057.6 1019.0 5.11 67.05% 4.68 1.15 1.5 46º 55.5º 15 86
7th Jul 1932 Draught Lager 1043.5 1013.6 3.96 68.74% 5.49 1.01 1.08 48º 15 11.5
19th Jul 1932 Draught Lager 1043.4 1013.2 4.00 69.59% 5.49 0.97 1.67 49.5º 15 12
10th Jul 1933 Draught Lager 1043.4 1010.4 4.37 76.04% 5.47 0.94 2 48.5º 12 12
14th Mar 1934 Draught Lager 1043.4 1011.1 4.27 74.42% 5.47 0.99 2 45º 52.5º 13 13
4th May 1934 Draught Lager 1043.2 1011.7 4.17 72.92% 5.47 0.99 2 45.5º 53º 11 11
7th Sep 1935 Draught Lager 1043.5 1010.1 4.41 76.69% 5.47 0.95 2 46º 56º 13 11
1st Apr 1925 Export Export 1050.5 1014.1 4.82 72.08% 6.54 1.31 1.5 48º 15 14
3rd Feb 1926 Export Export 1050.6 1015.4 4.66 69.57% 6.00 1.20 1.5 48º 15 13
16th May 1927 Export Export 1050.7 1013.8 4.88 72.78% 6.00 1.24 1.5 48º 15 12
11th Jan 1928 Export Export 1050.2 1014.6 4.71 70.92% 6.00 1.26 1.5 48º 15 10
22nd Jul 1930 Export Export 1050.2 1012.1 5.04 75.90% 6.00 1.21 1.5 47.5º 13 12
13th Aug 1930 Export Export 1050.3 1012.3 5.03 75.55% 6.00 1.22 1.5 48º 15 10
5th Aug 1931 Export Export 1050.4 1010.7 5.25 78.77% 6.00 1.16 1 48º 15 11
12th Jul 1933 Export Export 1049.4 1009.5 5.28 80.77% 6.00 1.19 2 48º 13 10.5
21st Mar 1934 Export Export 1049.5 1011.6 5.01 76.57% 6.00 1.14 2 46º 52.5º 14 9.5
2nd May 1934 Export Export 1049.4 1011.1 5.07 77.53% 6.00 1.11 2 46º 52º 10 10
Sources:
Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/1/638, ACC/2305/1/640 and ACC/2305/1/641.

Foreign Lagers 1930 - 1935
Year Brewer country Beer Style OG FG colour ABV App. Atten-uation
1930 average of 4 samples Germany Dunkles Münchener Dunkles 1055.2 1018.6 3.5 4.69 65.15%
1930 strongest sample Germany Dunkles Münchener Dunkles 1056.9 1020.4 3.9 4.72 62.92%
1930 weakest sample Germany Dunkles Münchener Dunkles 1053.6 1016.4 3 4.82 68.27%
1935 Löwenbräu, Munich Germany Dark Lager Dunkles 1055.0 1020.8 4.42 62.18%
1930 average of 14 samples Germany Export Dortmunder Export 1054.0 1012.2 0.73 5.39 76.44%
1930 strongest sample Germany Export Dortmunder Export 1057.2 1014.3 0.84 5.58 73.85%
1930 weakest sample Germany Export Dortmunder Export 1051.2 1009.4 0.66 5.08 80.88%
1930 average of 15 samples Germany Lagerbier Helles 1048.2 1011.0 0.72 4.78 76.25%
1930 strongest sample Germany Lagerbier Helles 1050.5 1012.2 0.78 4.99 74.96%
1930 weakest sample Germany Lagerbier Helles 1045.4 1006.5 0.59 5.10 85.07%
1932 Beck Germany Bier Lager 1051.0 1009.6 6.5 5.40 81.18%
1934 Tuborg Denmark Lager Lager 1044.7 1013.4 4.05 70.02%
1934 Wiibroes Bryggeri Denmark Lager Lager 1043.0 1012.4 3.97 71.16%
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
"Van Brouwerij tot Bierglas" by F. Kurris, Doetinchem, 1948, pages 26-27



* Brewers' Almanack 1928, p. 110.

4 comments:

Jeff Renner said...

Images, please.

Anonymous said...

Fermentation temps seem a bit high. Modern lagers tend to ferment several degrees lower and never get to 73°. Seems more like a steam beer than a lager.

Ron Pattinson said...

Anonymous, do you mean 53º F?

Anonymous said...

Misread a sentence, thought you were referring to lagers, not ales and didn't see pitching temperature in the chart. I'll look closer in the future.