Let's Brew Wednesday - 1937 Courage Stout Porter

I’m not sure what’s come over Kristen. Because he’s done something odd. He’s combined two recipes into one. The original log contained both a Porter and a Stout, parti-gyled together. This recipe is halfway between the two.

Courage was a funny old brewery. Horsleydown only had two recipes: one for their Mild and Burton Ales, another for Porter and Stout. Unusually for a London brewer, they only had one Stout. Before WW II they’d made two, Double Stout and Imperial Stout. The latter was an early wartime casualty and never returned.

Stout was still a standard draught beer in the 1930’s. In London, at any rate. So I think it’s safe to assume that Courage Stout was available in both draught and bottled format.

Now here’s a strange thing. I was just looking at more London Stout analyses from the late 1930’s. According to the brewing records, Porter had an OG of 1033º and Stout 1048º. Neither gravity tallies with many of the analysis gravities. It looks like Courage were doing what Kristen has done with this recipe. They were blending Porter and Stout. Though in their case it must have been post fermentation.

I’ve seen examples before. In turns up in Truman’s brewing records. In their case, it looks pretty odd. They’ve already parti-gyled more than one beer, then blend them to create even more. Not quite sure why you blend post-fermentation when you’re parti-gyling.

Here are the Courage Stout analyses:

Courage Stout 1934 - 1938
Year	Price	size	package	OG
1934	7d	pint	bottled	1050.1
1935	8d	pint	bottled	1048.9
1935	7d	pint	bottled	1036.5
1936	6.5d	pint	bottled	1037.7
1936	6.5d	pint	bottled	1037.4
1937	7d	pint	draught	1040
1938	8d	pint	bottled	1037.6
Source:
Truman Gravity Book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number B/THB/C/252.

The first two look like the Stout as brewed, the others a mix of Porter and Stout. So maybe this recipe of Kristen’s isn’t as half-arsed as I though.

For comparison purposes, here are some more London Stouts of the same period:

London Stouts in 1937
Brewer	Price	size	package	OG
Taylor Walker	8d	pint	bottled	1035.8
Truman	8d	pint	bottled	1041.5
Charrington	8d	pint	bottled	1043.9
Truman	3d	nip	bottled	1045.4
Mann	8d	pint	bottled	1046.5
Whitbread	8d	pint	bottled	1049
Barclay Perkins	8d	pint	bottled	1049.2
Charrington	7d	pint	draught	1045.1
Mann	7d	pint	draught	1047.1
Watney	7d	pint	draught	1048.9
Whitbread	7d	pint	draught	1050.8
Taylor Walker	8d	pint	draught	1053.9
Wenlock	7d	pint	draught	1054.4
Truman	8d	pint	draught	1054.7
Barclay Perkins	8d	pint	draught	1055.3
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/02/002.

Oddly, the draught versions are generally stronger. You can see that both Courage’s draught and bottles Stout were towards the bottom end of the scale gravity-wise. Interesting that Charrington and Mann, both originally Ales brewers, made the weakest draught Stouts and Truman and Barclay Perkins, who started as Porter brewers, the strongest. Not sure if that means anything, really.




Time for Kirsten to weave his magic . . . . .



 

 
Kristen’s Version:

Notes: So, I’ve always been averse to mucking with any of the logs we do. Ron and I both translate as best we can, verbatim if possible, and whenever not, it’s because something is no longer made. I’ve done so many stouts and porters and variants on gravity as well as the whole party gyling. The vast majority of the time, there are different sugars and hops going into different gyles so the beers end up pretty different. For this one, ‘All the sugar in the one copper’. The second gyle gets none and is pretty weak. The third gyle is the standard ‘liquid’ blending for getting the right gravities. So basically it makes this pretty easy. Both are pretty damn low gravities; Stout 1.048 & Porter 1.030. So here, we are splitting the difference. If you’d rather make one or the other, do it. On ward…

Malt: The base is a simple mix of two English pale malts. Pick your poison. Something robust tasting as this beer is just a little guy and could use some help. You’ve all hopefully been playing along for quite sometime so you know my preference for brown and black malts. Really, whatever you’d like. A digression, do not use Carabrown-type. Ever. For this, you want character so stay away from the debittered black malts. Regarding the oats, flaked/malted/pinhead/steelcut/oldfashioned doesn’t matter. As long as you cook them with your trusty golden spurtle, how can this beer turn out wrong?! The sugar is quite exotic…from Mauritius no less!! Make sure you source it!!! Or use a nice brown/demerara/muscovado. If you want to rock the boat, feel free to use some dark invert. Oh, shit, I forgot about the caramel. Holy buckets there is a metric butt tonne of it in this baby. Something seriously like 60 srm!! The beer is damn well in the 40’s anyway. If yous gots its, use its. If not, meh.

Hops: Any. Really. No, not actually really. Just don’t use anything that smell grundely, of the unwashed masses or of squishy fruits.

Yeast: Any English. Yes, this time I mean any. Really. Whatever you use, this beer is going to dry out anyway. Use something that has a nice character or just as important, something you have at home so you don’t have to drive anywhere and meet new people or deal with the suburban drivers and their vans of destruction or their whisper quiet hybrid vehicles or single speed riders that don’t follow any of the traffic laws. They’re the wurst. Really though, any English yeast.  

Cask: Standard procedure:
1) let the beer ferment until finished and then give it another day or so. For me right around 5-7 days.
2) Rack the beer to your vessel of choice (firkin, polypin, cornie, whatever).
3) Add primings at ~3.5g/L
4) Add prepared isinglass at 1ml/L
5) ONLY add dry hops at 0.25g/l – 1g/L.
6) Bung it up and roll it around to mix. Condition at 55F or so for 4-5 days and its ready to go. Spile/vent. Tap. Settle. Serve at 55F.