Medieval Mühlhausen

My sister-in-law used to live in Mühlhausen. A town with an almost complete city wall and streets of ancient, totally unmodernised houses.

Her flat was in an incredible building with a weird inner galleries and amazing attics. Didn't look like it had changed much in 400 years. Doubt that's true any longer.

The town also had three breweries for its 50,000 or so inhabitants. I was never quite sure which one of them my beer had come from, but it was good stuff. Dead good stuff. The Pilsator was my favourite DDR bottom-fermenter. As good as most Czech beers.

Let's Brew - 1973 Whitbread Mackeson Stout

Still not wrung the last drop from Milk Stout. Yet another Mackeson recipe. But quite a sad one, in a way. Because it’s the last one I have from Chiswell Street.

The recipe is very different from the last one I published from 1943. Though a lot of the differences – in particular all the oats – were the result of enforced changes due to wartime restrictions, rather than voluntary.

The pale, brown and chocolate combination used here was more typical of Whitbread’s 20th-century recipes. Not sure what the tiny amount of crystal malt contributes. Looks like a bit of a waste of time to me with all that roasted malt. And what about the torrefied barley? Is that there for head retention or as a cheap bulker-out?

There’s no mention of lactose in the original log, as Whitbread only added it at racking time. I’ve no analyses of Mackeson from this period so I’ve just had to guess. As brewed, the OG was 1039º and FG 1015

The hops in the original were all Worcester. Apart from the hop extract. I guess you probably won’t be using that, so I’ve just bumped up the hops. As no variety was specified for the hops, you can you use any English hops you fancy. I’ve just gone with Fuggles as a conservative choice.

1973 Whitbread Mackeson Stout
pale malt	6.25 lb	64.10%
brown malt	0.50 lb	5.13%
choc. Malt	0.75 lb	7.69%
crystal malt 60L	0.25 lb	2.56%
torrefied barley	1.00 lb	10.26%
lactose	0.75 lb	7.69%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.25 lb	2.56%
Fuggles 60 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 40 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 20 min	0.50 oz
OG	1044
FG	1015
ABV	3.84
Apparent attenuation	65.91%
IBU	16
SRM	25
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	60 minutes
pitching temp	64º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale

Jena station buffet

Another lazy post, with a flimsy personal connection.

I wish I'd taken more photos. In my DDR hanging around time. I was a total idiot. Captured fuck all photographically.

Jena station buffet. A HO job.

Jena was a town I knew from the footy team. One of the few DDR town names to drift into western consciousness.

Jena is in Thüringen, the home ground of Dolores. Not so odd we needed to change trains there, once. Or nipped into the station buffet.

A HO job. But decent. Reminded me of Stayleybridge.

It sold Jena beer.

 

Berliner Weisse according to Grenell (part two)

Grenell lists several methods of brewing Berliner Weisse. And I’m going to bore you with all of them.

Here’s the second:

“Method II. - Mash in the medium-milled grist in the kettle with water at 30° R. [37.5º C], at a rate of 3 hectolitres per Zentner [50 kg]. Leave to rest for 1 hour and then raise the temperature to 52° R [65º C] over 40-45 minutes and cover the fire. In the meantime, the mash tun is kept ready, half of the whole mash is drained into it, and the second half of the whole mash, which has been retained in the kettle, is slowly boiled, drained, and filtered as the first wort, as usual it is sparged using a Scottish sparge arm with water at 64-65° [80º - 81.25º C] so that the temperature in the tun does not fall below 60° R [75º C], or even simmeringly hot water, which would give a higher yield. Boil for 1/2 hour and mash out at 61-62° R. [76.25º - 77.5º C]

Hops. Once the bottom of the kettle is covered, 250-325 gr. of light hops are added per Zenter [50 kg] of Malt. - The wort should run off quickly and bright, etc. as in method I.

Pitching temperature. 12° R. [15º C] in cellars below 7° R [8.75º C], also probably at 14-15° R. [17.5º - 18.75º C], that is in summer 9-10° R. [11.25º - 12.5º C] in winter 12-16°R. [15º - 20º C]; Optimum: 10º R. [12.5º C].

It is pitched in large vats, after about eight to twelve hours it is partly transferred to smaller vessels, in which the main fermentation takes its further course, or is used as a "young beer" to blend with beer in the tun.

Yeast pitching rate: 1 litre of thick yeast per Zentner [50 kg] of malt or 5 hectolitres of wort. Length of fermentation: 2.5 to 3 days, also perhaps 3-5 days. After pitching the yeast, remove the head 2-3 times until a pure yeast head appears, then the beer is drawn off (or the yeast head is taken off before drawing off the beer), 1/2 water and 10% fresh beer are added and it is filled into bottles or jugs. Send out after 14 days or you can add up to 1/4 fresh beer, depending on how quickly the Weissbier needs to be delivered.

In the case of bright (sparklingly clear) Weissbier, filtration occurs after the main fermentation, and it is filled into bottles with a very small addition of bottom-fermenting yeast.

Berlin Weisse intended for "external consumption," is stored for some time in cool cellars; where the secondary fermentation proceeds slowly. At the customer, the Weisse is pitched again, for which purpose the brewery sends approximately 80 gr. of yeast per hectolitre. In the pub the landlord also adds 1 kilo of refined sugar, which has previously been dissolved in 3 litres of water,  per hectolitre.

The size of the yeast and sugar addition of course depends on the desired fermentation.”
"Die Fabrikation obergäriger Biere in Praxis und Theorie" by Braumeister Grenell, 1907, pages 70 - 72. (My translation.)

I was at first baffled by the term “scottischer Drehkreuz” in the text. Then twigged that it meant a sparge arm. Another phrase to add to my German brewing vocabulary.

Repitching with bottom-fermenting yeast caught my eye. I’ve heard that some Weizenbier producers do the same for their Hefeweizen. Even though it might be technically illegal – wheat beer has to be top-fermented according to the Reinheitsgebot.

Note that once again the beer is diluted with water at bottling time. This seems to have been a common practice in the brewing of top-fermenting beer in Germany.

The beer intended for "external consumption," – by that I think they mean in pubs – looks like it’s being cask-conditioned in the pub. The addition of extra yeast and sugar would surely have started a secondary fermentation in the cask.

US tour

No words. Relaxing in my first chance to catch breath since landing. Just a few images.

And no, that wasn't a lite beer.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1962 Lees Archer Stout

I’ve been scouring my brewing records looking for Milk Stouts. And I have to say that I’ve found disappointingly few.

I’m not totally sure why that is. From labels and advertisements it’s clear that a high proportion of breweries had a Milk Stout in their portfolio. Most likely explanation I can think of is that an ordinary Stout had lactose added at racking time. Though I could be wrong.

Imagine my delight, then, at spotting lactose in Lees Archer Stout. I’ve published a recipe for Lees Stout from 1952 which didn’t contain lactose. Looking through the records, I saw that they only started using it in 1956. Which seems quite late for introducing a Milk Stout.

Though it seems that they never billed it as such. The labels I’ve seen for Archer Stout make no mention of milk sugar. They don’t even claim that it’s sweet. Strange, as it contains about the same percentage of lactose as other Milk Stouts.

Archer Stout wasn’t the only Lees beer to contain lactose. Their Best Mild did, too. Though, intriguingly, not their Ordinary Mild. Make of that what you will.

Turning to the beer itself, Archer Stout has quite a complicated grist, consisting of three malts, one adjunct and four sugars. The brown malt in my recipe is a substitution for something called “oak dried” malt. Brown malt seems like the best equivalent. There’s also a reasonable amount of flaked oats in the recipe. So it’s odd that the brewery didn’t claim Archer was either an Oatmeal or a Milk Stout.

The No. 3 invert is another substitution, this time for CDM and HX. CDM I’m pretty sure was a dark sugar, based on its usage at various breweries. HX I’ve no idea about

I know nothing about the hops, other than that most were English with a tiny amount of Styrians, just 2 out of the total of 28 lbs. Fuggles seems a good bet for this type of beer, but, as usual, feel free to substitute any appropriate English hop.

As Lees couldn’t be arsed to note down the FG, I’ve had to make a guess. It could be wildly wrong, though I doubt it could have been much lower. Could have been higher.

1962 Lees Archer Stout
pale malt	2.75 lb	40.26%
brown malt	1.00 lb	14.64%
black malt	0.50 lb	7.32%
flaked oat	0.33 lb	4.83%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.75 lb	10.98%
No. 4 invert sugar	0.50 lb	7.32%
lactose	1.00 lb	14.64%
Fuggles 90 min	0.75 oz
Fuggles 30 min	0.75 oz
OG	1036
FG	1014
ABV	2.91
Apparent attenuation	61.11%
IBU	20
SRM	29
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)

Dresden with Matt

DDR label fun, with a vague personal twist.

You should be getting the idea. I've a long trip coming up and a effing load of posts to write.

My first experience of DDR fun, was with Matt. University friend.

I enjoyed Leipzig more than Dresden.

Berliner Weisse according to Grenell

I can never get enough of Berliner Weisse. It’s strange how this obscure style – it never made up more than a tiny percentage of the beer brewed in Germany – has had so much written about it. Easily the best documented of all German beer types.

The text below confirms some of the odder characteristics of Berliner Weisse. Namely that it was originally brewed using smoked wheat malt and that it was often watered down at bottling time. Also, that there was a Märzen-strength version.

I’ll let Grenell explain further.

“BERLINER WEISSE.
Original gravity: 12%, Märzen: 15-15% balling.
Berliner Weisse is a very refreshing, highly-carbonated, slightly sour drink, and is particularly enjoyed in the summer mixed with fruit juice.

As it is produced nowadays, it is quite different from the old version, as in the past a smoked wheat malt was used, the yeast changed after every third brew, and a new batch brought from Cottbus; furthermore, in the middle of the last century, Weissbier was usually sold as a young beer, shipped immediately to publicans, and further fermented by them, and then bottled with some barm, with a little water added, and therefore they were called Ganz- or Vollweisse [whole or full Weisse]. Heavily watered beer was delivered as Halbweisse [half Weisse] at a cheap price.

The brewing process is similar to Einfachbier. 3 parts of wheat malt and 1 part of barley malt or 2/3 of wheat malt and 1/3 barley malt are used. Both malts, on account of the different grain sizes, are milled separately, and the wheat malt, for a better yield,  is milled finer; additionally the malt is mostly assembled in bins the day before, and lightly sprinkled (with 1-2% of water) in order to make the husks crush more easily. However, the wheat malt itself is to be kept dry.

In the authentic brewing process the wort is not boiled, but is mashed in at 61-62° R. [76.25º - 77.5º C], pumped directly from a grant to the cooler, and left there for as short a time as possible, the best way to do this is to let it flow through the cooler and then over the chilling apparatus into a large pitching tun.

The hop charge of 375-500 gr. Per Zentner [50 kg] of malt is boiled for 5 minutes before mashing in the mash tun and then used with the brewing water to brew the mash, that is, cold water is added to bring the whole mash to 28° R [35º C] h and the quantity is calculated so as to produce 1 hectolitre of original wort per Zentner [50 kg] of malt. It is mashed at the above temperature with the rakes moving constantly.

The mash out temperature of 61-61° R. [76.25º - 76.25º C] is necessary, if one does not wish to run a great danger of infection; however, one should not go higher in order not to weaken the "diastase" too much and thus prevent saccharification. The lauter tun should, of course, be well insulated compound in order to prevent it cooling. Once the wort is in the pitching tun it should be immediately pitched yeast!”
"Die Fabrikation obergäriger Biere in Praxis und Theorie" by Braumeister Grenell, 1907, pages 68 - 70. (My translation.)

Not boiling the wort was typical of 20th-century Berliner Weisse production. Partly to keep the colour of the finished beer incredibly pale. You can see why that would form a risk of infection, hence the care taken to quickly cool and pitch the wort with yeast.

A ratio to two parts wheat malt to one of barley is the classic grist, but by no means fixed. There were even versions without any wheat at all sometimes in the 20th century. Which is a bit of a cheek. Though that was Kindl and their Berliner Weisse always was crap.

The current incarnation of Berliner Weisse at only Schankbier (8º Plato) strength is fairly recent. Stronger versions existed in the 20th century. Not sure when they disappeared, but the post-war DDR-brewed Märzen-Weisse was Märzen in name only, still being Schankbier strength.

Milk Stout 1938 - 1939

You may be wondering about my current Milk Stout obsession. Why? Would seem a logical question.

It's because I'm on my travels. Not as I write this, but as you read it. I'll be in Michigan when this is published, a couple of days into my Macbeth tour. I've no idea when I'm away if I'll have either the time or the inclination to write blog posts. So I write them all before I leave. Enough to have me covered until a couple of days after I return. Having a theme saves me the trouble of thinking up post ideas.

Lots more lovely Milk Stouts. Though they're still a bit all over the shop, varying in OG from 1036º to 1066º. Which is pretty much identical to the last set. Except top dog this time is William Younger. I published a recipe for 1939 William Younger Btlg DBS and remarked it didn't look like the usual idea of a Milk Stout. I'm heartened to see that it clearly was marketed as a Milk Stout, because it's a perfect match for the two examples in the table.

You can see that the gravity of Mackeson has fallen a little, from 1060º in 1929 to 1056º in 1939. While at the same time the FG has risen from 1020º to 1025º, reducing the attenuation from 66% to 55%. The conclusion must be that it was becoming sweeter. The ABV also dropped from 5.2% to 4%. I don't think I would have appreciated that.

The most significant change is in the average rate of attenution, which has fallen from 64% to 61%. It looks to me as if Milk Stout in general was getting sweeter. Something I suspect will be confirmed when we look at Milk Stouts during and after WW II. There's another couple of posts mapped out.

Milk Stout 1938 - 1939
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1938	Barclay Perkins	Milk Stout	6	1048.6	1019.2	3.79	60.49%	325
1938	Bernard	Milk Stout	9	1057	1013.6	5.65	76.14%	320
1938	Birkenhead Brewery	Milk Stout		1057.9	1020.9	4.78	63.90%	320
1938	Brickwoods	Milk Stout	10	1052.6	1016.2	4.72	69.20%	330
1938	Fullers	Milk Stout	8	1045.5	1020.4	3.23	55.16%
1938	Gilmour	Milk Stout	9	1047.4	1014.5	4.26	69.41%
1938	Hydes	Milk Stout	9	1052.4	1016.5	4.65	68.51%	225
1938	John Smith	Milk Stout		1047.9	1016	4.13	66.60%
1938	Mackeson	Milk Stout		1056.5	1025.5	3.99	54.87%
1938	Mackeson	Milk Stout		1058.25	1026.75	4.05	54.08%
1938	Richdale, John	Milk Stout	9	1045.1	1017.2	3.60	61.86%	320
1938	Stone, Wm.	Milk Stout		1055.4	1027.6	3.57	50.18%
1938	Truman	Milk Stout		1047.1	1021	3.36	55.41%
1938	Watney	Milk Stout	9.5	1048.6	1020.2	3.66	58.44%
1938	Watney	Milk Stout	10	1050.5	1025.3	3.23	49.90%	175
1939	Barclay Perkins	Milk Stout	9	1049.2	1020.2	3.74	58.94%	320
1939	Calder Alloa	Milk Stout	10	1052.5	1021	4.06	60.00%
1939	Kemp Town	Milk Stout	9	1046.8	1015.7	4.02	66.45%	200
1939	Leicester Brewing & Malting Co.	Milk Stout	11	1040.3	1011.5	3.73	71.46%	200
1939	Lovibond	Milk Stout		1051.9	1019.4	4.20	62.62%	425
1939	Mackeson	Milk Stout	12	1056	1025	3.99	55.36%
1939	Ridley	Milk Stout		1049.2	1020.2	3.74	58.94%	330
1939	Tamplin	Milk Stout		1036	1011.5	3.17	68.06%	225
1939	Taylor Walker	Milk Stout	10	1061.1	1031	3.86	49.26%	800
1939	Truman	Milk Stout	9.5	1047.7	1022	3.31	53.88%	250
1939	Truman	Milk Stout	9.5	1045.7	1020.1	3.30	56.02%	275
1939	Warwick & Richardson	Milk Stout		1052.4	1021.2	4.02	59.54%	300
1939	Watney	Milk Stout	10	1050.3	1024.5	3.31	51.29%	175
1939	Wm. Younger	Milk Stout (Monk Export Brand)		1065.8	1023.9	5.42	63.68%	500
1939	Wm. Younger	Milk Stout	12	1065.5	1019	6.04	70.99%
	Average		9.6	1051.4	1020.2	4.02	60.70%	316.6
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive.

Let's Brew - July 1917 Magee Marshall Government Ale

What joy! I’m able to bring you another luverly, watery Government Ale. Courtesy of Edd Mather, who has taken a look at the Magee Marshall brewing records.

It got me dead excited when I learned about that. Because Magee Marshall was a prominent brewery in Bolton and is mentioned by name in The Pub and the People, the brilliant Mass Observation book about working-class pub culture in the North of England.

July 1917 is a very significant date because that’s when the first restrictions on beer gravity were introduced. Half of the beer a brewery produced had to be below 1036º. But, on the other hand, the price of this beer was controlled. It retailed for a maximum of 4d per pint in the public bar. Brewers and drinkers alike took to calling such beer Government Ale. Which didn’t go down well with the government, which eventually banned the use of the name.

Most brewers produced a (for the day) low-gravity Mild as their Government Ale. It made sense, as Mild was the biggest seller for most breweries. Initially, these beers were much like modern Mild Ales. But as the UK’s grain supply became more and more stretched, new restrictions turned it into a non-intoxicating drink. Some were as weak as 1.1% ABV. Not really beer at all.

Magee’s Government Ale wasn’t a complicated beer. Just pale malt and sugar. Which begs the question: what colour was it? Probably not that dark, though it’s hard to know for sure. It could have been coloured with caramel.

Unsurprisingly, the hops are all English. By this phase of the war pretty much no foreign hops were being used.

Edd sent me the recipe in a rather different format from the one I usually use. So I’ve included both his and my formats.

July 1917 Magee`s Government Ale
pale malt	7.00 lb	93.33%
cane sugar	0.50 lb	6.67%
Fuggles105 mins	1.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	1.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.125 oz
OG	1034.5
FG	1009.5
ABV	3.31
Apparent attenuation	72.46%
IBU	32
SRM	3
Mash at	147º F
Sparge at	163º F
Boil time	105 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1318 London ale III (Boddingtons)

July 1917 Magee`s Government Ale
OG	1034.5
FG	1009.5
ABV	3.40%
Malt ;
Maris Otter	93%
Cane Sugar	7%
Hops ;	IBU
East Kents	17
Bramling X	14
Dry Hop (east kents)	1 oz per barrel
Boil :	1.75 Hours
Mash Directions
Strike Temp:	73º C
Mash Temp:	64º C
Mash Length:	1.75 Hours
Sparge Temp (START AT 1.75 HRS):	73º C
fermentation temperature	16-18º C

Milk Stout 1925 - 1937

I should temporarily change title of the blog to The Milk Stout Story". Don't worry. I'm nowhere near finished with the topic.

I've dove into my collection of Gravity Book analyses to spear all the Milk Stout examples. And there are quite a few. All I can say is: what a diverse bunch.

For a start, the gravities are all over the shop. As you can see, the original, Mackeson, had a very respectable OG of 1060º in 1929. To put that into perspective, Guinness Extra Stout was around 1055º between the wars. The examples in the table vary from 1036º to 1066º. Though admittedly the high one is a Belgian example from Lamot. Though, at 1064º the strongest UK-brewed dexample isn't that far behind. The overall average of 1053º is probably about the same as the average for all Stouts.

Some of the rates of attenuation surprised me by how high they were. I wouldn't expect a Milk Stout, with all that unfermentable lactose to get higher than 65% apparent attenuation. Yet there are a few pushing 80%. Not sure how they achieved that, unless the quantity of lactose used was quite small. At the other end, there are a few at 50% attenuation of less. Which is more like you would expect. The overall average of 64% is higher than I would have guessed.
Note that the price per pint didn't always necessarily reflect the strength of the beer. At a time when beer strengths weren't gerneally known, it was relatively easy for a brewer to overprice a beer.

What I see is typical of fairly new styles. initially, different brewers interpretations vary considerably in strength and character, but eventually settle into a similar pattern. We'll see if that's true as I slowly creep through the decades.

Milk Stout 1925 - 1937
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint d	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation
1925	Simonds	Milk Stout	11	1062.1
1927	Ashton Gate Brewery	Milk Stout	9	1052.4	1015.7	4.76	70.04%
1928	Simonds	Milk Stout	10	1058.7	1017.5	5.35	70.19%
1929	Mackeson	Milk Stout	10	1060.4	1020.4	5.18	66.23%
1930	Beer & Rigden	Milk Stout		1054.4	1027.1	3.50	50.18%
1931	Calder	Milk Stout		1059	1023	4.65	61.02%
1931	Fremlin	Milk Stout	10	1047.5	1019.9	3.56	58.11%
1932	Carter, Milner & Bird	Milk Stout	11	1044.2	1013.4	3.99	69.68%
1933	Murray	Milk Stout		1036	1018	2.31	50.00%
1933	Simonds	Milk Stout	10	1049	1018.5	3.94	62.24%
1934	Fremlin	Milk Stout	8	1048.7	1020.4	3.65	58.11%
1934	Woodhead	Milk Stout	8	1041.6	1016.3	3.26	60.82%
1935	Allsopp	Milk Stout	9	1049.3	1013.8	4.61	72.01%
1935	Ansell	Milk Stout	11	1060.7	1018.1	5.53	70.18%
1935	Fremlin	Milk Stout	8	1048.8	1020.2	3.69	58.61%
1935	Lamot	Milk Stout		1065.7	1016.9	6.35	74.28%
1935	Mann	Milk Stout	10	1044.6	1022.9	2.79	48.65%
1935	Simonds	Milk Stout	10	1048.4	1014.3	4.42	70.45%
1935	Simonds	Milk Stout	10	1055	1018.3	4.75	66.73%
1936	McEwan	Milk Stout	12	1064.4	1013.1	6.70	79.66%
1936	Wm. Younger	Milk Stout	10.5	1063	1014.7	6.30	76.67%
1937	Allsopp	Milk Stout	12	1050.3	1014.5	4.64	71.17%
1937	Ansell	Milk Stout	12	1060.8	1018.1	5.54	70.23%
1937	Calder Alloa	Milk Stout		1055.75	1022.25	4.32	60.09%
1937	Mackeson	Milk Stout		1057	1024.5	4.19	57.02%
1937	Mann	Milk Stout	9	1043.8	1023.8	2.56	45.66%
1937	Marston	Milk Stout	9	1045.8	1010	4.66	78.17%
1937	Murray	Milk Stout	6	1044.8	1019.2	3.30	57.14%
1937	Seed, Richard	Milk Stout	11	1052.9	1011.3	5.42	78.64%
1937	Wenlock	Milk Stout	8	1053.5	1025.9	3.55	51.59%
	Average		9.8	1052.6	1018.3	4.39	64.26%
Sources:
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.
Younger, Wm. & Co Gravity Book document WY/6/1/1/19 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive.
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive.