Let's Brew Wednesday - 1932 Barclay Perkins Draught Lager

What an impressive run of Let's Brews this has been. Several weeks in a row, on Wednesday. And all Lager recipes.

I'm getting very close to telling you why I had all these Lager recipes to hand. I've booked my flights, so I'm pretty much committed. But funnily enough, this isn't one of those recipes. I've written it especially for this. Just to complete the set of pre-war Barclay Perkins Lager recipes.

On with the beer itself.  I'm not sure exactly when it was brought on as a sub, but it wasn't in the starting lineup. Sometime between 1928 and 1932. It's sign that demand for Lager was increasing, the fact it could be served on draught.

Trade price lists from WW II tell us something about how this beer was packaged and served:

The barrel sizes are revealing. 11 gallons is 50 litres. These are obviously of Continental design. But they're  also quite small. Most beer was delivered to pubs in 36-gallon barrels of 54-gallon hogsheads.

Then the prices. Lets say ten bob a gallon for Export and Dark. That comes to 360/- an Imperial barrel. No wonder they're priced by the gallon. Even Home Light - the beer we're looking at - was 306/- a barrel. And was about the same strength as XLK. As always in Britain, Lager was crap value on a price/ABV basis.

You see that they've now got three draught Lagers. Export and Dark, their original pair, had been added to the prosaic Draught.

I also know it was served on CO2 pressure, because "tubes of gas" get a mention on the flip side:

(Excuse the dirty fingernail. I'd been in the archive all day. You can't imagine the filth you're covered with after the sixtieth brewing book. I usually try to dress all in black.)

That's the contextual crap. Time to look more closely at the recipe. Not that there's much to look at. It's a near-smash recipe, with only Hallertau spoiling the show. I'm surprised by the diversity of Barclay Perkins Lager recipes.This is all malt. Unlike Export, their other pale Lager, whose grist was almost 25% corn grits.

This is how it compares with some of Barclay Perkins' other beers:

Barclay Perkins beers in 1932
name	description	OG
X	Ordinary Mild	1032.8
XX	Best Mild	1040.87
XLK	Ordinary Bitter	1043.88
PA	Best Bitter	1050.76
Source:
Barclay Perkins brewing record held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number ACC/2305/01/617.

Draught was around the same strength as Best Mild or Ordinary Bitter. Which is a bit different from the situation after 1960, when Lager was around the same strength as Cooking Mild.

That's more than I intended writing. Best stop now and switch off Nigella.




Over to me again . . . . .

1932 Barclay Perkins Draught Lager
lager malt	9.50 lb	100.00%	9.50 lb
Hallertau 90 min	0.88 oz
Saaz 60 min	0.67 oz
Saaz 30 min	0.67 oz
OG	1043.5
FG	1011
ABV	4.30
Apparent attenuation	74.71%
IBU	29
SRM	3
Mash at	155º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	48º F
Yeast	Wyeast 2042 Danish lager

Here's the original mashing scheme for the masochists amongst you:

Fed up with Lager recipes yet? I've a few more. Including some odd ones. Like the second Scottish Lager.