Whitbread Strong Ales 1946 - 1973

I've told you many times what a deeply lazy person I am. Here's proof. I've chosen to do the simplest of Whitbread's other styles first. The Strong Ales, because there are only a handful of examples.

Here's a funny thing. in the 1940's and 1950's Burton was one of the standard draught beers in London pubs. Whitbread was a very London brewery. But unless I've missed them in the logs, Whitbread didn't brew one for much of that period. Let me just check something . . .

Just taken a look at what I could find in my table of beer details from various Gravity Books. Sure enough, there are examples of Whitbread's KKKK from years where I didn't find any in the brewing records. There are two explanations: either I missed them in the brewing records or they were brewed somewhere other than Chiswell Street. My guess is that I missed them. I think it's fair to say that KKKK was probably brewed until at least 1960.

We're looking at two different beers: draught Burton (XXXX and KKKK) and a bottled Strong Ale Final Selection (FSA). Sometime around 1950 Whitbread bumped up the gravity of XXXX and changed its name to KKKK. Strange that. It should really be KK. Though they weren't the only London brewer to call their Burton. Mann and Watney did, too.

Whitbread Strong Ales 1946 - 1973
Date	Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)	Pitch temp	length of fermentation (days)	colour
25th Jan	1946	XXXX	1043.3	1008.5	4.60	80.37%	5.75	1.07	1	1	62º	6	15 + 40
1st Feb	1946	XXXX	1043.3	1010.0	4.41	76.91%	5.75	1.08	1	1.25	62º	7	21 + 40
14th Nov	1958	KKKK	1050.5	1011.5	5.16	77.23%	7.75	1.68	1	1.5	62º	7	125
4th Feb	1959	KKKK	1051.9	1014.5	4.95	72.06%	7.50	1.56	1	0.75	62º	6	130
2nd Mar	1960	KKKK	1051.8	1016.0	4.74	69.11%	7.50	1.56	1	1.25	62º	7	135
30th Jul	1968	FSA	1079.6	1012.4	8.89	84.42%	6.88	2.35	1.25		58º	8	105
6th Aug	1968	FSA	1079.6	1013.4	8.76	83.17%	6.74	2.22	1.75		58º	8	100
3rd Jun	1970	FSA	1079.1	1009.7	9.18	87.74%	4.81	1.67	1	1.5	64º	8	110
20th May	1970	FSA	1079.8	1009.8	9.26	87.72%	4.78	1.69	2.75		64º	8	115
24th Jun	1970	FSA	1079.8	1007.8	9.53	90.23%	4.78	1.66	3		64º	8	110
15th Dec	1971	FSA	1079.8	1011.0	9.10	86.22%	4.48	1.55	2.25		64º	8	115
12th Jul	1972	FSA	1079.8	1011.3	9.06	85.84%	4.44	1.50	2	2	64º	8	115
27th Jun	1973	FSA	1079.6	1011.8	8.97	85.18%	4.69	1.58	2	2	64º	8	110
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/113, LMA/4453/D/01/126, LMA/4453/D/01/127, LMA/4453/D/01/137, LMA/4453/D/09/140 and LMA/4453/D/09/141.

Whitbread Strong Ales 1948 - 1954
Year	Beer	Price	size	package	Acidity	FG	OG	colour	ABV	App. Atte-nuation
1948	Strong Ale		pint	bottled		1012	1045.5		4.35	73.63%
1949	Strong Ale	20d	pint	draught			1046.67	104
1951	KKKK	1/11d	pint	draught			1053.5
1951	KKKK	1/11d	pint	draught			1053.5
1951	KKKK	1/11d	pint	draught			1053.5
1953	Strong Ale	23d	pint	draught			1052.06	104
1954	KKKK	1/11d	pint	draught	0.06	1011.9	1051.2	15 R + 40 B	5.11	76.76%
Sources:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/002

Whitbread Strong Ale grists 1946 - 1973
Date	Year	Beer	OG	comments	pale malt	brown malt	choc. Malt	crystal malt	PA malt	no. 1 sugar	no. 3 sugar	Hay M	WSM	LP5	flaked barley
25th Jan	1946	XXXX	1043.3	MK and EK hops. Hopulon.		1.58%	1.98%	2.37%	63.72%		16.89%	0.79%			12.66%
1st Feb	1946	XXXX	1043.3	MK and EK hops. Hopulon.			3.17%		66.49%		16.89%	0.79%			12.66%
14th Nov	1958	KKKK	1050.5	MK and EK hops.			0.90%		82.23%		14.46%	2.41%
4th Feb	1959	KKKK	1051.9	MK, EK and Worcester hops.			0.87%		82.85%		13.95%	2.33%
2nd Mar	1960	KKKK	1051.8	MK and Worcester hops.			0.87%		82.85%		13.95%	2.33%
30th Jul	1968	FSA	1079.6	EK hops.	87.86%		3.47%			8.67%
6th Aug	1968	FSA	1079.6	EK hops.	87.80%		3.66%			8.54%
3rd Jun	1970	FSA	1079.1	EK hops.	79.75%		2.80%			17.45%
20th May	1970	FSA	1079.8	EK hops.	80.00%		2.77%			17.23%
24th Jun	1970	FSA	1079.8	EK Goldings and hop extract	80.00%		2.77%			17.23%
15th Dec	1971	FSA	1079.8	EK hops.	70.40%		3.11%	5.38%					21.12%
12th Jul	1972	FSA	1079.8	EK hops.	87.85%		3.07%							9.08%
27th Jun	1973	FSA	1079.6	EK hops.	87.44%		3.26%							9.30%
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/113, LMA/4453/D/01/126, LMA/4453/D/01/127, LMA/4453/D/01/137, LMA/4453/D/09/140 and LMA/4453/D/09/141.

Whitbread's KKKK looks like a typical 1950's Burton. A gravity in the low 1050's, dark brown colour and a reasonably high rate of hopping. The attenuation is a little higher than in their Mild leaving a finished beer of around 5% ABV. Which was pretty strong for a draught beer in that period.

Moving on to the grist, that's pretty simple being just pale ale malt, a touch of chocolate malt No. 34 sugar and Hay M. Though you have to wonder what the point is in using less than 1% chocolate malt. Brown malt and crystal malt show up in small quantities in the very first example. The flaked barley in the two examples from 1946 is a hangover from wartime regulations. Brewers were forced to use flaked barley. The idea was that it saved the energy that would need to be used to malt it.

The hops are, as you should be expecting by now, all English. Apart from that hopulon stuff in the 1940's.

Moving on to FSA, it's intriguing to see Whitbread introduce this in the 1960's. Especially one so dark. By that time the fashion had definitely moved to paler strong beers. Also intriguing is the very high degree of attenuation, averaging around 85%. Which is why it's pushing a heady 9% ABV. Note also the much longer boil time than for their other beers - more than two hours. Presumably this was to concentrate the wort. The pitching temperature is high for such a strong beer, but Whitbread seemed to pitch all their beers at the same temperature in those years.

Note that the hopping rate after 1968 falls by about 25%. After that date it only had as many hops per barrel as KKKK, a much weaker beer. If we look at the amount of hops per quarter - a way of taking the gravity of the beer out of the equation - at around 4.75 lbs, it's about 50% less than the 7.5 lbs of KKKK. Look back at the last set of Whitbread Mild. You'll see that had 4.75 lbs of hops per quarter in 1966. Despite being fairly dry, this couldn't have been a very bitter beer.

Though they were using good-quality hops, EK or EK Goldings. They were probably all really EK Goldings, they just didn't always note it down.

FSA had a simple grist: lots of pale malt, a little chocolate malt and sugar. In the beginning No. 1, later proprietary stuff. I assume there was a colour adjustment with caramel. No way it would get a dark brown colour from such a small amount of chocolate malt.

You can see that Whitbread ditched numbered invert sugars after 1970 and moved to using proprietary sugars in all their beers.

One other small point. See how FSA contained to adjuncts. All their other beers at this time, PA excepted, contained some.