Whitbread K Ales in the 1840's

Looking back through my old posts, I noticed that I'd started going through Whitbread's Ales from their inception in the 1830's, but had never finished. In fact I didn't get any further than the . . . . 1830's. So it's about time I went through their K Ales from the 1840's.

Whitbread only started brewing Ales a few years before this, in 1837. It was still very much a sideline for them. Their bread butter was Porter and Stout. Well Porter, really. In the years I have figures for in the 1840's, they brewed about 150,000 barrels of Porter and 10,000 barrels of Stout*. It makes the 34,000 Of Ale which Whitbread made in their most productive year of the 1840's look pretty feeble.

I wish I had separate output figures for the K and X Ales. But unfortunately Whitbread just lumped together XX and KXX, XXX and KXXX and XXXX and KXXXX. XXXX and KXXXX were discontinued in 1844. Not surprising, seeing as they only brewed 101 barrels in 1843 and 52 barrels in 1844. The output of XX/KXX and  XXX/KXXX both increased as the decade progressed, but still lagged way behind the popular X Ale. A beer with no Stock Ale equivalent.

As you can see in the table below, there was a gradual downward drift in gravities, with KXX dropping from 1091.1 to 1087.5, and KXXX from 1102.5 to 1092. There was a similar trend among the X Ales. As you should have come to expect by now, the gravities of XX and KXX were the same, as were the gravities of XXX and KXXX.

Whitbread Ale output 1843 - 1847
	X		XL		XX		XXX		XXXX		total
	barrels	% of total	barrels	% of total	barrels	% of total	barrels	% of total	barrels	% of total
1843	12,337	65.20%	1,695	8.96%	2,329	12.31%	2,459	13.00%	101	0.53%	18,921
1844	19,748	68.95%	1,220	4.26%	3,064	10.70%	4,559	15.92%	51	0.18%	28,642
1845	22,012	70.40%	1,023	3.27%	3,661	11.71%	4,571	14.62%			31,267
1846	23,441	70.14%	824	2.47%	4,427	13.25%	4,729	14.15%			33,421
1847	21,420	69.13%	971	3.13%	4,599	14.84%	3,997	12.90%			30,987
1848	20,651	59.60%	3,766	10.87%	5,304	15.31%	4,929	14.23%			34,650
1849	22,441	67.69%	2,245	6.77%	4,286	12.93%	4,180	12.61%			33,152
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/004, LMA/4453/D/01/006, LMA/4453/D/01/007, LMA/4453/D/01/008, LMA/4453/D/01/009, LMA/4453/D/01/010, LMA/4453/D/01/011 and LMA/4453/D/01/012.

What does surprise me is that the K versions don't have that many more hops than the X equivalent. The average of the 8 examples of XX is s.88 lbs per barrel, not that much less than the 3.6 to 4.2 lbs of KXX. Usually K Ales had 50-100% more hops per barrel. This even more apparent in the case of XXX and KXXX, where, in some cases, there are XXX Ales with more hops than some KXXX Ales. The average hopping rate for the KXXX examples is 3.92 lbs per barrel - barely more than XXX's average of 3.77 lbs.

Whitbread K Ales in the 1840's
Date	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. fermentation temp	length of fermentation (days)
6th Apr	1841	KXX	1091.1	1038.8	6.93	57.45%	9.85	3.60	2	2	3	60º	79º	4 + 3
23rd Mar	1844	KXX	1090.6	1028.5	8.21	68.50%	9.56	3.81	1.5	2	3	60º	78º	3 + 3
5th May	1846	KXX	1086.7	1029.1	7.62	66.45%	10.05	4.22	1.5	2	3	63º	76º	3 + 4
21st Mar	1849	KXX	1087.5	1028.8	7.77	67.09%	10.91	4.21	1.5	2	2	60º	76º	3 + 3
22nd Apr	1841	KXXX	1102.5	1029.9	9.60	70.81%	5.96	2.55	2	2	3	60º	79º	4 + 4
16th Dec	1842	KXXX	1099.7	1030.7	9.12	69.17%	7.82	3.66	1.5	2	3	60º	78º	3 + 3
11th Feb	1843	KXXX	1100.3	1032.7	8.94	67.40%	9.09	3.94	1.5	2	3	60º	78º	4 + 3
4th Mar	1844	KXXX	1101.1	1029.9	9.42	70.41%	9.42	4.22	1.5	2	3	60º	78º	4 + 2
10th Feb	1845	KXXX	1097.5	1029.9	8.94	69.32%	9.67	3.95	1.5	2	3	60º	78º
29h Jan	1846	KXXX	1095.8	1029.9	8.72	68.79%	9.89	4.49	1.5	2	3	60º	75º	3 + 4
25th Oct	1847	KXXX	1093.1	1031.9	8.10	65.77%	9.13	3.77	1.5	2	2	60º	76º	3 + 2
8th Jan	1849	KXXX	1092.0	1031.6	7.99	65.66%	10.95	4.77	1.5	2	2	60º	78º	3 + 3
9th Mar	1844	KXXXX	1112.7				10.91	5.47	1.5	2	3	58º	78º	4 + ?
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/004, LMA/4453/D/01/006, LMA/4453/D/01/007, LMA/4453/D/01/008, LMA/4453/D/01/009, LMA/4453/D/01/011 and LMA/4453/D/01/012.

Whitbread X Ales in the 1840's
Year	Brewer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1841	X	1077.0	1030.7	6.12	60.07%	7.45	2.36
1842	X	1073.7	1028.0	6.05	62.03%	7.31	2.44
1843	X	1079.8	1029.1	6.71	63.54%	7.35	2.48
1844	X	1078.7	1026.6	6.89	66.20%	7.93	2.74
1845	X	1078.1	1029.6	6.41	62.06%	8.44	2.86
1846	X	1077.6	1028.8	6.45	62.86%	9.89	3.63
1847	X	1064.0	1027.1	4.87	57.58%	9.13	2.59
1848	X	1074.5	1028.3	6.12	62.08%	8.25	2.98
1849	X	1075.3	1027.7	6.30	63.24%	7.25	2.35
1841	XL	1081.2	1029.9	6.78	63.14%	7.27	2.47
1844	XL	1082.3	1027.7	7.22	66.33%	7.78	2.71
1845	XL	1082.3	1029.1	7.04	64.65%	7.33	2.45
1846	XL	1081.7	1026.6	7.29	67.46%	8.55	3.18
1847	XL	1064.5	1026.3	5.06	59.23%	9.63	2.80
1849	XL	1076.7	1028.8	6.34	62.45%	7.25	2.39
1841	XX	1091.7	1031.6	7.95	65.56%	7.29	2.68
1843	XX	1089.2	1029.9	7.84	66.46%	6.42	2.37
1844	XX	1072.0	1029.6	5.61	58.85%	9.56	3.03
1845	XX	1089.7	1029.1	8.03	67.59%	7.85	2.64
1846	XX	1088.1	1026.3	8.17	70.13%	8.55	3.35
1847	XX	1072.9	1028.3	5.90	61.22%	8.64	3.09
1848	XX	1084.8	1029.1	7.37	65.69%	8.73	3.29
1849	XX	1084.5	1029.4	7.29	65.25%	8.47	3.44
1841	XXX	1101.4	1030.7	9.34	69.67%	7.45	3.11
1842	XXX	1100.3				7.31	3.32
1843	XXX	1100.3	1032.7	8.94	67.40%	6.44	2.81
1844	XXX	1099.4	1027.7	9.49	72.14%	7.11	3.00
1845	XXX	1098.3	1027.7	9.34	71.83%	8.29	3.56
1846	XXX	1094.5	1029.1	8.65	69.21%	8.55	3.87
1847	XXX	1086.7	1032.1	7.22	62.94%	9.37	3.65
1848	XXX	1093.1	1027.7	8.65	70.24%	8.62	3.77
1842	XXXX	1112.2				8.38	4.19
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/004, LMA/4453/D/01/006, LMA/4453/D/01/007, LMA/4453/D/01/008, LMA/4453/D/01/009, LMA/4453/D/01/010, LMA/4453/D/01/011 and LMA/4453/D/01/012.

Let's look in more detail at the K Ales. I've not bothered with a grist table because all of these beers were brewed from 100% pale malt. The hopping isn't much more exciting, with all the hops English, except for the KXXX of 1847 which also had some American ones. There was one difference in recipe between the X and K Ales. In 1847, the year in became a legal ingredient in beer, Whitbread experimented with using sugar. But only in X Ales. At about 20% of the grist, the proportion of sugar to malt was quite high.

The degree of attenuation at 65 to 70% isn't great, but I've seen worse. And it would presumably have fallen during maturation. Especially as there would almost certainly have been Brettanomyces involved in the secondary fermentation. Many of William Younger's strong Shilling Ales of the 1840's had an apparent attenuation of below 60%, some barely over 50%.

The extended boil for the later worts is almost certainly to concentrate them to get to the required gravity. With even the X Ale over 1070º, these were all powerful beers.

Intriguingly, the Ales were pitched at a cooler temperature than their Porter and Stouts. Which were pitched at 63 or 64º F, even SSS with a gravity over 1090º. I don't have the maximum fermentation temperature, unfortunately, but I imagine they were at least as high as for the Ales. Over the century it would fall to a more reasonable temperature in the low 70's.

Next time - the 1850's.




* Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/09/033, LMA/4453/D/09/034, LMA/4453/D/09/035, LMA/4453/D/09/036, LMA/4453/D/09/037, LMA/4453/D/09/038, LMA/4453/D/09/039, LMA/4453/D/09/040, LMA/4453/D/09/041, LMA/4453/D/09/042 and LMA/4453/D/09/043.