So you shouldn’t be surprised to discover that Golden Ale dates back much further than the 1980’s. And not just as far back as the 1950’s. A quick search in the newspaper archive popped up a beer called Golden Ale from almost a century earlier than that.
Bristol Times and Mirror - Thursday 07 May 1868, page 4.
A quick look at the colour confirms that it wasn’t just a fancy name for a bottled Pale Ale, but a significantly paler beer. It’s about the same colour as Pilsner Urquell. Though my guess is that if you’d asked for a Light Ale in a Strong’s pub, this is what you would have been served.
It’s another very simple recipe: pale malt and sugar. That’s it. Oh, and a tiny dash of malt extract. I’ve picked Goldings as the hops because it contained Kent and Farnham hops, according to the brewing record. And it’s pretty hop-accented, so you’d expect good quality hops to have been used. For its gravity, it has the heaviest hopping of any of Strong’s beers.
What else can I tell you? How much it cost down the pub. That’s always handy to know. This was Strong’s range of bottled beers:
| Strong bottled beer prices 1955 | ||||
| beer | style | OG | price per half pint | price per pint |
| Golden Ale | Light Ale | 1033.5 | 10d | 19d |
| Brown Ale | Brown Ale | 1033.5 | 10d | 19d |
| Black Bess Stout | Stout | 1036.6 | 10d | 19d |
| SPA | Pale Ale | 1045.4 | 12d | |
| SSB | Strong Ale | 1045.4 | 12d | |
| Sources: | ||||
| Strong brewing record, document number 79A01-A3-3-27 | ||||
| A Strong & Co, price list dated 4th July 1955. | ||||
As you can see, they kept the pricing structure simple.
Not sure I’ve much else to tell you. I think I’ll leave it there.
Over to me for the recipe . . . .
| 1952 Strong Golden Ale | ||
| PA malt | 5.50 lb | 78.57% |
| no. 1 sugar | 0.75 lb | 10.71% |
| glucose | 0.375 lb | 5.36% |
| candy sugar | 0.125 lb | 1.79% |
| malt extract | 0.25 lb | 3.57% |
| Goldings 90 min | 0.75 oz | |
| Goldings 60 min | 0.75 oz | |
| Goldings 30 min | 0.75 oz | |
| Goldings dry hops | 1.00 oz | |
| OG | 1033.5 | |
| FG | 1007.5 | |
| ABV | 3.44 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 77.61% | |
| IBU | 37 | |
| SRM | 4 | |
| Mash at | 153º F | |
| Sparge at | 160º F | |
| Boil time | 90 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 60º F | |
| Yeast | WLP007 Dry English Ale | |
I think the question of whether golden ale was something new in the 1980s is a fascinating one. I've no doubt that John Gilbert at Hop Back and the chaps at Exmoor genuinely believed they were doing something new inspired by lager -- they weren't historians after all. So, no, not new, as you say, but I don't believe it was inspired by or a conscious continuation of this earlier tradition either.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone else skip straight to the recipe and spend a few minutes wondering how 3.44% could be considered "strong"?
ReplyDeleteDaveS,
ReplyDeleteStrong is the name of the brewery.
I think I'll call my brewery Imperial
ReplyDeleteRon - I got that in the end! It confused me for a minute or two, though. :-)
ReplyDeleteThat'll teach me for not reading the article properly...
I see the Golden and Brown ales have identical OGs. Were they substantively different or was the Brown just the Golden with caramel? You can see that I've been reading your stuff enough that I know that such jiggery pokery wouldn't be unusual!
ReplyDeleteMichael+,
ReplyDeletethe recipes are very different. The Brown Ale is identical to the Mild, except that it was dry hopped in the tank before bottling.