Adnams LA and LBA 1947 - 1959

Yes, I am doing Adnams Pally Allies. I know I promised them. Sort of. And I almost occasionally come through with my promises.

Throughout most of this period Adnams only brewed one Pale Ale, with the imaginative brew house name of PA. Wonder how they came up with that one? In 1947 they briefly brewed something called LA (presumably standing for Light Ale). Though as it looks much like the PA, I don’t really think it was a different beer.

In the last four years we’re covering there was something called LBA (Light Bitter Ale) which had a gravity a few points lower than PA. There’s such a small difference it hardly seems worth it. Though British brewers are still wont to brew multiple Bitters with tiny differences in gravity.

It would be nice to know in which form LBA was sold. It could have been a draught beer but my money would be on it being a bottled-only beer sold as Light Ale. For a beer of such modest gravity, a pound of hops per barrel is quite a lot. The attenuation isn’t great for most examples of LBA: under 70%. Which leaves it under 3% ABV. You weren’t going to get very pissed in a session on that.

Moving on to the grist, it’s pretty simple: pale malt and sugar. Except for in 1947 when there’s a little flaked barley. That’s a hangover from the war years when brewers were forced to use some flaked barley by the government. The reason was a very basic one. Flaking required less energy than malting. I’m not sure what Hydrol is. It could possibly be a form of glucose.

There’s very little to say about the hops, other than that they’re almost all English. The logs give no indication of the variety, or even the region in which they were grown.

Adnams LA/LBA 1945 - 1959
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl	boil time (hours)	boil time (hours)
3rd Jun	1947	1034.0	1008.3	3.40	75.56%	7.58	1.00	2
7th Sep	1956	1031.0	1010.5	2.71	66.05%	8.00	1.02	2
1st Aug	1957	1032.0	1010.0	2.91	68.84%	8.00	1.00	2
10th Jan	1958	1032.0	1008.3	3.13	74.03%	7.47	0.98	2
2nd Dec	1959	1031.0	1009.4	2.86	69.62%	7.82	1.01	1.58	1.5
Source:
Adnams brewing records held at the brewery.

Adnams LA/LBA grists 1945 - 1959
Date	Year	OG	pale malt	PA malt	flaked barley	no. 1 sugar	Hydrol	hops
3rd Jun	1947	1034.0	87.27%		5.45%	7.27%		English
7th Sep	1956	1031.0		89.19%		10.81%		English
1st Aug	1957	1032.0	89.19%			5.41%	5.41%	English
10th Jan	1958	1032.0	85.71%			9.52%	4.76%	English
2nd Dec	1959	1031.0	85.07%			8.96%	5.97%	English, Styrian
Source:
Adnams brewing records held at the brewery.

PA next. I had intended including it here but ran into arsing issues.