Thursday 2 February 2017

Thomas Usher Mild Ales 1885 - 1914

You've probably guessed. Another table from my upcoming book on Scottish beer.

I've tried to avoid new research as much as possible. Some, I couldn't dodge. One being mapping fermentation temperatures properly. Not just the minimum and maximum temperatures, but the whole profile. Fairly tedious work. But it's delivered a result.

William Younger Shilling Ale and X Ale fermentations in 1885
1st day 2nd day 3rd day 4th day
beer OG pitching heat morning evening morning evening morning evening morning
60/- 1053 59.0º F 60.0º F 63.0º F 66.0º F 68.0º F 65.0º F 58.0º F
XX 1054 60.5º F 68.0º F 69.0º F 59.0º F 56.5º F 54.0º F 52.0º F 54.0º F
80/- 1064 59.0º F 61.0º F 64.0º F 70.0º F 70.0º F 63.0º F 57.0º F
XXX 1065 58.0º F 61.5º F 66.0º F 67.5º F 64.5º F 56.0º F 56.0º F 53.0º F
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/31.

For ages I'd been wondering what the difference was between William Younger's Shilling Ales and X Ales. Same OG, same ingredients. But look at the difference in the fermentations.

Now I just have to guess why.

Oh. And here's a nice William Younger label:





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

70 Farenheit -- can't be true. In Scotland, they fermented cold (joking, joking).

The label is interesting to me -- for how long would it have been acceptable to have such an openly Catholic symbol?

I assume by that point in history monks were nothing but a curiousity in Scotland, like Aztec priests, but I assume at some earlier point it would have been economically risky to associate with them.

James said...

I doubt the Church of England (or the Church of Scotland, or whatever) was willing to cede all historical Christian activity in Britain to the Catholic Church, any more than the Confederates would have conceded that Washington and Jefferson "belonged" to the Federal side of the Civil War. So in other words, I doubt pre-Reformation monks were seen as particularly Catholic as opposed to generically Christian. And this is leaving aside the fact that there were and are Anglican (and Presbyterian) monks.

And so I doubt William Younger was running any particular economic risks with this imagery.