It’s thanks to Ed Wray, who took a few snaps of Greene King’s brewing records, again. This is derived from a photograph he sent me rather than me just nicking it from his blog.
The OG of this beer is very revealing. Revealing about the reason so many AKs disappeared. With a gravity already in the low 1030’s, the drop in beer strength as a result of WW II left beers like this unviably weak. Just like 4d Ale.
The grist doesn’t have anything very unusual about. There is Fiona, a type of diastatic malt extract that was added in the mash tun. It’s not even that odd, plenty of beers of this period contained malt extract. It’s just the type, Fiona rather than DME, that is slightly out of the ordinary.
It’s clear that the war must have knocked Greene King’s Best Bitter, IPA, down into Ordinary Bitter country. Which is presumably when and why AK was discontinued.
I’d love to see more of Greene King’s brewing records. They’re easy to read and contain all the most important information.
| 1937 Greene King AK | ||
| pale malt | 5.75 lb | 76.67% |
| crystal malt 60L | 0.25 lb | 3.33% |
| flaked maize | 0.50 lb | 6.67% |
| no. 2 sugar | 0.75 lb | 10.00% |
| diastatic malt extract | 0.25 lb | 3.33% |
| Fuggles 90 mins | 1.00 oz | |
| Goldings 30 mins | 0.50 oz | |
| Saaz 30 mins | 0.50 oz | |
| Goldings dry hops | 0.75 oz | |
| OG | 1033.8 | |
| FG | 1011.1 | |
| ABV | 3.00 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 67.16% | |
| IBU | 27 | |
| SRM | 7 | |
| Mash at | 150º F | |
| Sparge at | 170º F | |
| Boil time | 90 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 61º F | |
| Yeast | WLP025 Southwold | |
Again I wondered about those malt extracts, so searched a bit. Here's what Briggs has to say on it:
ReplyDelete"In the past, diastatic extracts, rich in malt enzymes, might be added to brewers' mashes at rates of about 1 part per 36 parts of grist (w/w), to improve or supplement the enzymes there and to enhance extract recovery, wort fermentability and the supply of assimilable yeast nutrients, especially low-molecular-weight nitrogenous substances (FAN). In addition, such extracts have high buffering capacities. Alternatively, extracts were added to cooled wort, despite the risk of causing microbial infections, to adjust fermentability."