Let’s Brew 1944 Barclay Perkins X

Apologies for the snail’s pace at which we’re progressing through WW II. It’s just that I want to demonstrate how often recipes had to change.

Of course, this is nothing compared to what was going on in Germany. By the time this beer was produced in December 1944, brewing had all but ground to a total halt in Germany. As this table shows:

Year	UK		Germany
	production	gravity	production	gravity
	(barrels 1,000)		(barrels 1,000)
1938	24,535	1041
1939	25,532	1040.9	31,326	1041
1940	25,499	1040.6	29,774	1037
1941	29,101	1038.5	28,733	1034
1942	29,170	1035.5	25,976	1030
1943	29,956	1034.3	26,496
1944	31,472	1034.6
1945	32,667	1034.5
1949	26,276	1033.4	8,648	1032
1951	25,087	1037	17,360
Sources:
The Brewers' Almanack 1955, p. 56
100 Jahre Deutsche Brauer-Bund 1871-1971, p.202
Notes:
UK gravities are an average of all beer brewed
German gravities are for the strongest beer allowed.

I’ve never been able to find figures for German beer output in the last two years of the war. I suspect it was an extremely amount. For the first couple of years after the end of the war, the only brewing that was allowed in the British occupied zone was for the British army.

But back to the beer in hand. The only real change to the recipe from the 1943 version is the replacement of the flaked and malted oats by flaked barley. As we learned last time, this wasn’t exactly a voluntary choice on the part of the brewer. Brewers continued to use flaked barley until the end of the 1940’s, when supplies to maize were resumed.

All of the base malt was SA malt, for which I’ve substituted mild malt.

Barclay Perkins continued to brew both X and XX, even though there were only 2 points difference in their gravities. Talking of which, the primings that X received at racking time raised its gravity to a mighty 1032º.

I’m not totally sure what the finished colour of this beer was. I assume dark. As brewed, it was 10 SRM. But in the front of this brewing book there’s a sheet giving the colour standards for all their beers date 1st April 1946. Both X and XX are listed at 21-22 SRM, meaning they were no longer making a semi-dark Mild. Whereas earlier in the war, X was dark and XX semi-dark.

The hopping is both pretty light and the hops quite old. A third were from the 1941 crop and two-thirds from the 1943 crop. I’ve reduced the amount accordingly.

1944 Barclay Perkins X
mild malt	4.25 lb	69.22%
amber malt	0.50 lb	8.14%
crystal malt 60 L	0.33 lb	5.37%
flaked barley	0.50 lb	8.14%
No. 3 invert sugar	0.50 lb	8.14%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.06 lb	0.98%
Fuggles 90 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.25 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.25 oz
OG	1029
FG	1009
ABV	2.65
Apparent attenuation	68.97%
IBU	14
SRM	12
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale