Courage Strong Ales 1920 - 1928 (part two)

It really is the final instalment this time. The last post was getting a bit long so I've split it into two parts.

It's the grists we'll be looking at. As XXX and KKK were parti-gyled together, there's not much point looking at the grists separately. Except for one item: primings.

The logs give full details of the primings used, broken out for each beer in the parti-gyle. Logical enough, since as the primings were added after primary fermentation, when the beers were separate.  Courage primed all their beers except one: KKK. Occasionally they primed it a little, but in general not. Was that because they were leaving it to age a little? Primings are generally used to bring a beer into condition quickly.

There's an awful lot of crystal malt - almost 18% of the grist in one case - in some examples. Coupled with relatively modest hopping, it must have resulted in quite sweet finished beers. Pale is the only other malt used, apart from a tiny amount of black malt in a couple of early examples.

The sugar content, on the other hand, is quite low, never topping 14%. It's in the form of No. 3 invert, which is exactly what you would expect in dark beers like these. The vast majority of the colour would have come from this and the caramel.

Finding some flaked maize is no surprise. Most brewers used it from what I've seen in brewing records. Whitbread is the only notable exception, using only malt and sugar in their grists.

The hops used are interesting. A mix of West Coast US hops and English hops, in every case. Again, pretty typical practice for the time. The fascinating bit is the occasional use of Saaz, a hop which seems to have been held in quite high regard by British brewers.

There. We're finally done. Have to think of something else to bore you with now.

Courage Strong Ale grists 1920 - 1928
Year	Beer	OG	pale malt	black malt	crystal malt	no. 3 sugar	caramel	flaked maize	primings	hops
1920	SA	1054.6	83.59%	2.34%		13.54%	0.52%			Californian, Saaz and English.
1921	SA	1053.5	64.73%		17.40%	8.35%		6.26%	3.25%	Californian and English
1921	SA	1053.5	64.38%		17.60%	8.87%	0.57%	6.44%	2.15%	Californian, Saaz and English.
1922	XXX	1054.3	64.45%		17.65%	8.18%	1.02%	6.14%	2.56%	Californian and English
1923	XXX	1053.5	65.15%		17.95%	8.32%	0.52%	6.24%	1.82%	Pacific and English
1926	XXX	1053.5	64.34%		12.87%	11.80%	1.47%	8.85%	0.67%	Oregon and English
1927	XXX	1053.5	62.78%		12.56%	11.66%	1.57%	10.76%	0.67%	Oregon and English
1928	XXX	1053.5	62.61%		12.29%	11.52%	1.79%	9.99%	1.79%	Oregon, British Columbian and English
1922	KKK	1073.4	84.18%	1.90%		13.92%				Pacific and English.
1923	KKK	1073.4	84.18%	1.90%		13.92%				Pacific and English
1926	KKK	1073.4	64.69%		12.94%	11.86%	1.48%	8.89%	0.13%	Oregon and English
1926	KKK	1073.4	64.86%		12.97%	11.89%	1.35%	8.92%		Oregon and English
1927	KKK	1073.4	63.25%		12.65%	11.75%	1.51%	10.84%		Oregon and English
1928	KKK	1073.4	64.07%		13.17%	11.58%	1.60%	9.58%		Oregon and English
Source:
Courage brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers ACC/2305/08/251, ACC/2305/08/253, ACC/2305/08/255 and ACC/2305/08/256.