Let's Brew - 1984 Maclay SPA

I may as well give you the full set of shillings, now we’ve had 60 and 80 Bob.

SPA, or 70/- or Heavy, wasn’t that old a beer. It only seems to date from after WW II. The first spotting I have of it is 1951. In the later war years, Maclay brewed just two Pale Ales, PA 6d and Export. PA5d, their weakest Pale Ale, was dropped, presumably because the strength of PA 6d had dropped to its level.

There was some rearrangement after the war and SPA was introduced as a new mid-strength Pale Ale.  It had about the same OG as PA 6d had had before the war. The stronger Export was emerged from WW II surprisingly unscathed, with an OG just a couple of points lower than in 1939.

Once they’d moved to this new three Pale Ale set up, Maclay brewed it relentlessly for the next forty years, with only small changes to the recipes and gravities. Incredibly boring, really. Which isn’t to say that the beers were bad, they weren’t. Just that for the historian there’s not a huge amount of material.

And there you have it: the full set of Maclay’s beers from 1984.

1984 Maclay SPA
pale malt	6.75 lb	89.82%
malt extract	0.14 lb	1.86%
No. 1 invert	0.50 lb	6.65%
No. 3 invert	0.13 lb	1.66%
Cluster 90 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 min	0.25 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.25 oz
OG	1034
FG	1009
ABV	3.31
Apparent attenuation	73.53%
IBU	21
SRM	5
Mash at	148/157º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale