Let's Brew Wednesday - 1952 Strong SPA

We’ve just about finished off the set of Strong’s beers from the 1950’s. Quite an interesting set.

This time it’s their, er, strong Pale ale. A beer that was sold in bottled format only. Bottled beer was on the rise again in the 1950’s after being beaten down by wartime restrictions. Less popular styles like Stout retreated from draught, but other beers were designed to be bottled only. Things like Brown Ale and Light Ale.

This gives a flavour of the shift in consumer preference from cask to bottled beer:

“A CONTINUOUS and growing demand for bottled was reported by H.W. Lake, MC. the chairman of directors at the Annual General Meeting of Cheltenham and Hereford Breweries, Ltd which was held the Fleece Hotel, Cheltenham. yesterday.

In his remarks amplifying his statement circulated to shareholders, he said "In this part of the world people are changing. They like beer out of a bottle and not out of a cask.

"While this is proceeding here to such an extent, I want to tell you that this Company is prepared for this change.

"Under the direction of the brewers helped by Mr Hopcraft, we have a bottling plant which can cope with all the present demands and it is up to us to thank the management and the brewers that they have able to design improvements in our bottle store, by which we ran cope with this extraordinary demand for bottled beer which increases every year, and looks like increasing."

. . . .

“The outstanding feature this year is that although the output of beer in cask declines, the demand for bottled beer continually increases. We are, however, now able to meet all demands for bottled goods, having concentrated our bottling at Cheltenham with a complete range of modern plant running smoothly and economically.””
Gloucester Citizen - Saturday 16 December 1950, page 2.

Getting back to the beer in question, it has one notable feature: it’s very pale. At 13.5 on the old Lovibond scale, it’s only a tad darker than the 12.5 of their Golden Ale. It’d got me thinking about the colour of Pale Ale. I’ve often wondered just how pale 19th-century versions were. What was a typical colour in the early 1950’s?

So I had a look at other Pale Ales of the same era. I’ve plenty of analyses. And I’ve arranged them nicely in a table:

Pale Ale colour in 1952
Year	Brewer	Spotlight	Price	size	package	OG	colour
1952	Ansell	Pale Ale	10d	half pint	bottled	1038.3	19
1952	Cobbs Brewery	Pale Ale	10d	half pint	bottled	1031.5	26
1952	Barclay Perkins	Pale Ale	15d	pint	draught	1034.6	19
1952	Barclay Perkins	Pale Ale	16d	pint	draught	1033.22	24
1952	Barclay Perkins	H & O Pale Ale	16d	pint	draught	1032.78	23
1952	Bass	Pale Ale		half	bottled	1036.7	20
1952	Bass	Pale Ale	19d	pint	draught	1044.81	22
1952	Bass	Pale Ale	19d	pint	draught	1046.44	24
1952	Beasley	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1037.18	30
1952	Benskins	Pale Ale	18d	pint	draught	1038.98	23
1952	Charrington	Pale Ale	15d	pint	draught	1034.06	18
1952	Courage	Pale Ale	16d	pint	draught	1037.47	24
1952	Courage	Pale Ale	19d	pint	draught	1039.99	26
1952	Courage	Pale Ale	18d	pint	draught	1039.04	32
1952	Ind Coope	Pale Ale	19d	pint	draught	1044.08	26
1952	Ind Coope	Pale Ale	19d	pint	draught	1043.7	23
1952	Ind Coope	Coronet Pale Ale	19d	pint	draught	1044.86	23
1952	Ind Coope	Pale Ale	11d	half pint	bottled	1035.6	22
1952	Lacons	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1037.98	30
1952	Lacons	Pale Ale	18d	pint	draught	1037.93	25
1952	Lacons	Bitter	17d	pint	draught	1037.36	28
1952	Lees	Bitter				1040.0	20
1952	Lees	Pale Ale				1040.0	20
1952	Mann	Macs No.1 Pale Ale	20d	pint	draught	1044.91	20
1952	McMullen	Pale Ale	10.5d	half	bottled	1038.2	30
1952	Meux	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1036.04	20
1952	Taylor Walker	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1037.65	24
1952	Tetley	Pale Ale	16d	pint	draught	1036.27	20
1952	Tollemache	Resch's Bitter Ale	18d	pint	draught	1035.96	23
1952	Tooth & Co	Pale Ale		half	bottled	1043.1	13
1952	Truman	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1037.15	20
1952	Truman	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1037.14	24
1952	Truman	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1036.72	20
1952	Truman	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1036.52	24
1952	Watney	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1037.42	24
1952	Watney	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1035.72	26
1952	Wenlock	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1036.09	32
1952	Wenlock	Pale Ale	16d	pint	draught	1036.69	27
1952	Whitbread	Pale Ale	17d	pint	draught	1038.12	28
1952	Younger	"Monk" Export	17d	pint	draught	1035.92	26
1952	Wm.Younger		1/1d	half	bottled	1046.9	24
	Average					1038.4	23.7
Sources:
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/02/001.
Lees brewing recods

The only one that’s paler is from Australia. Only a handful have a colour of less than 20. It’s clear that SPA was unusually pale.

The table also tells us that SPA was up at the top end of the strength scale for Pale Ales. Only two are stronger and one of those is Bass.

The recipe is extremely simple: pale malt, sugar and English hops. Attenuation is relatively low, meaning the finished beer should have plenty of body, probably drinking stronger than it really is. A beer I’d really like to taste.




That’s me done, so over to me for the recipe . . .

1952 Strong SPA
pale malt	6.75 lb	74.34%
no. 1 sugar	1.00 lb	11.01%
glucose	0.75 lb	8.26%
candy sugar	0.25 lb	2.75%
malt extract	0.33 lb	3.63%
Fuggles 90 min	0.75 oz
Goldings 60 min	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1045.4
FG	1015.2
ABV	4.00
Apparent attenuation	66.52%
IBU	31
SRM	4.5
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	160º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	WLP007 Dry English Ale