William Younger's Brown Ales and Mild 1949 - 1957

See? I hadn’t forgotten about Younger’s Mild and Brown Ales. Well, I had, actually. I only remembered when I stumbled on the half-finished table.

I’m sure there are plenty of series that have ended abruptly. That’s the curse of being interested in as many aspects of beer and brewing as I am. There’s always something else to attract my attention.

William Younger was an untypical Scottish brewery. In that they had more than one or two recipes. Standard Scottish practice was to parti-gyle the Pale Ales and Strong Ale from one recipe and Stout from the other. After WW II most had abandoned Mild, instead selling a caramel-coloured Pale Ale – 60/- - in its place. Not so Younger.

They still brewed a Mild to its own recipe, XXX. It might have had about the same OG as their entry-level Pale Ale, but the grist was quite different. XXX contained some dark malt, in the form of crystal and something called “M”. The only type I can think of that begins with an “M” is mild malt. But the percentage used is too small for that to make any sense. I’m open to suggestions.

Brown Ale, as with many breweries, doesn’t show up in their brewing records at all. So it’s probably safe to assume that it was another beer, probably XXX, slightly tweaked and bottled. At least the weaker one. The stronger Edinburgh Brown Ale is more of a mystery. Looking at the gravity, it could be based on either their Export or No. 3 Strong Ale. I’d probably plump for the latter, but not having brewing records from the appropriate years, I can’t check.

Does Scottish Brown Ale count as Northern or Southern? It looks like Younger brewed one of each. Though personally I prefer the terms Brown Ale and Double Brown Ale. Because the North/South divide is basically bollocks. There were plenty of weak Brown Ales brewed in the North and strong ones brewed in the South.

William Younger's Brown Ales and Mild 1949 - 1957
Year	Beer	Price	size	package	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1949	Brown Ale	1/2d	pint	bottled	1033.6	1011.2	2.90	66.67%	18 + 40
1949	Brown Ale		pint	bottled	1033	1014	2.45	57.58%
1950	Brown Ale	11d	half	bottled	1032.6	1011.4	2.74	65.03%	40 + 27
1956	"Wee Willie" Brown Ale	1/-	half	bottled	1033.5	1009.6	3.10	71.34%	70
1956	Edinburgh Brown Ale	1/1d	half	bottled	1046.8	1013.2	4.36	71.79%	75
1957	Edinburgh Brown Ale	1/2d	half	bottled	1046.6	1013.1	4.34	71.89%	55
1951	X	13d	pint	draught	1030				72
1952	X	14d	pint	draught	1031.2				80
1952	X	14d	pint	draught	1033.5				92
1953	X	14d	pint	draught	1033.3				82
1955	X	14d	pint	draught	1030.2				96
Sources:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11.
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.

Strong/Scotch Ale next.