Let's Brew Wednesday - 1962 Whitbread Ex PA

For once, this is a Whitbread recipe that I didn’t harvest myself. As I mentioned before, this is courtesy of Peter Symons.

Rushing through the Whitbread brewing logs, I managed to miss the export Pale Ale. They probably didn’t brew it that often, which is my excuse for failing to spot it. I believe this is the beer that was intended for the Belgian market, along with Extra Stout.

It’s not a complicated recipe, just pale malt, a touch of crystal and No. 1 invert sugar. It isn’t, as you might expect, a scaled-up version of their domestic PA, containing a much less crystal malt. I guess, with the increased gravity, they didn’t need as much crystal malt for colour or body.

The original contains a small amount of hops from Alsace. But it was such a small amount – 60 lbs in a total of 1,200 lbs – that I’ve just left it out. If you feel inclined to go the full authenticity hog, use 0.25 oz. Strisselspalt and knock down the Fuggles addition by the same amount.

It’s considerably more heavily hopped than the domestic PA – 49 calculated IBU as opposed to 28. That’s fairly bitter. The dry hops are a guess as Whitbread didn’t record dry hops in their brewing logs.

This beer, unlike most of Whitbread’s range, is still brewed. Somewhere in Belgium, by AB-Inbev. How much the current version resembles that of 1962 is difficult to say. Though I doubt the Belgians are using No. 1 invert sugar. It’s probably been replaced by some sort of Belgian brewing sugar. And perhaps contains adjuncts.

1962 Whitbread Ex PA
PA malt	8.75 lb	77.23%
crystal malt 60L	0.33 lb	2.91%
no. 1 sugar	2.25 lb	19.86%
Fuggles 90 min	1.50 oz
Goldings 60 min	1.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	1.50 oz
Goldings dry hop	0.50 oz
OG	1056.8
FG	1018.4
ABV	5.08
Apparent attenuation	67.61%
IBU	49
SRM	5
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale