1933 Drybrough P80/-

You can never have too many watery Scottish Pale Ale recipes, that’s what I say. But that’s not what you’re getting.

Instead it’s a full-strength, top-of-the-range Pale  Ale. Obviously, though, it being Scotland, Drybrough used the same recipe for all their beers.

You know how the standard line is that Scottish Ales get all their colour from either being boiled to gloop or roast barley? I’ve found fuck all evidence of this. Dark grains of any variety are rare in any Scottish beer other than Stout. So I was slightly surprised to discover Drybrough adding a touch of black malt to their beers in the 1930’s. I assume it’s there purely to add a little colour. Strange that they didn’t use caramel like everyone else.

Other than the pale and black malt, there’s also flaked maize, malt extract (very popular in the 1930’s) and a proprietary sugar called Avona. As I haven’t the foggiest what that is, I’ve substituted No. 1 invert. Though I could just as easily plumped for No. 2 invert.

As usual, there’s a good bit of guessing in the hops. All I know for sure is that they were all English. Making Fuggles and Golding a safe choice.

English Pale Ales in 1933
Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	package	OG	FG	ABV	App. Attenuation
Barclay Perkins	Pale Ale	7	draught	1049.1
Bass	Pale Ale		bottled	1055	1007	6.28	87.27%
Bass	Blue Label		bottled	1057.5	1014	5.66	75.65%
Charrington	PA	7	draught	1048	1012.4	4.62	74.17%
Courage	PA	8	draught	1057	1010.5	6.07	81.58%
Hoare	PA	7	draught	1043	1007.8	4.58	81.86%
Hoare & Co	Pale Ale	7	draught	1044.9
Ind Coope	Draught Ale	8	draught	1056	1009	6.14	83.93%
Lees	B			1047.0	1009.0	5.03	80.85%
Mann	Pale Ale	7	draught	1052.6
Meux	Pale Ale	7	draught	1043.9
Morgans	Pale Ale	9	bottled	1048	1018.4	3.82	61.67%
Taylor Walker	Pale Ale	7	draught	1044	1008.8	4.58	80.00%
Tetley	Bitter	8	draught	1048	1008.6	5.14	82.08%
Truman	PA	7	draught	1050	1005.7	5.80	88.60%
Watney	Pale Ale	7	draught	1050	1015.7	4.44	68.60%
Whitbread	PA	7	draught	1048.8	1012.2	4.75	75.00%
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.
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11
Lees brewing records

Going into compare and contrast mode, P80/- looks very much like and English 7d Pale Ale, or Best Bitter. Though most of the English examples have a much higher degree of attenuation, mostly over 80%. Though you can that Bass was stronger and not that far off the classic 1065º pre-WW I OG.

1933 Drybrough P80/-
pale malt	7.50 lb	70.62%
black malt	0.06 lb	0.56%
flaked maize	1.75 lb	16.48%
No. 1 invert sugar	1.25 lb	11.77%
malt extract	0.06 lb	0.56%
Fuggles 120 min	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1049
FG	1015
ABV	4.50
Apparent attenuation	69.39%
IBU	31
SRM	8
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	167º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	59º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale