Let’s Brew 1936 Barclay Perkins DB

I’m always working on stuff in the background. Things that may or may not surface at some point.

One of my current projects is converting the old recipes in Mild! plus to my new standard format. It’s a bit weird having them in two different formats. Latest up for revision is Doctor Brown Ale, Barclay Perkins Brown Ale.

You probably remember me saying that Brown Ales don’t turn up that often in brewing records. That’s because at many breweries it was just a bottled version of Mild, though it may well have been primed differently. Meaning there are no records for specifically Brown Ale.

One exception was in London, where both Barclay Perkins and Whitbread had a beer called DB that was a separate brew. Neither beer was a version of their Brown Ale, but an individual brew with its own particular grist. A grist unlike that of either their Pale Ales or Mild Ales.

The lack of mild malt and amber malt mark it out from the Milds, while the presence of crystal malt and No. 3 invert set it apart from the Pale Ales. Having a grist unlike any other beer meant that it had to be brewed single-gyle, something Barclay Perkins didn’t do very often. Most brews were dome sort of parti-gyle.

Another feature which singles DB out is the very heavy priming. A maximum of 1 gallon per barrel was used in other beers. DB has two gallons. Which is enough to raise the effective OG to 1046.5º.

In the case of Milds, which were cask-conditioned, some of the primings would have been fermented. Not so sure if this would have been the case with DB. Doubtless in would have spent some time in a tank before bottling, but I’m not sure how much fermentation would have been going on. Assuming little, the degree of attenuation falls to about 66%.

1936 Barclay Perkins DB
pale malt	6.00 lb	64.31%
crystal malt 60 L	1.00 lb	10.72%
maize	1.25 lb	13.40%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.50 lb	5.36%
brown sugar	0.50 lb	5.36%
caramel	0.08 lb	0.86%
Fuggles 150 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1041
FG	1010
ABV	4.10
Apparent attenuation	75.61%
IBU	29
SRM	15
Mash at	153º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	150 minutes
pitching temp	60.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale