Let's Brew Wednesday - 1956 Tennant's Glucose Stout

Tennant is a very confusing brewery when it comes to ingredients. They seem to use some of them in the wrong beers.

Take Glucose Stout, for example. The name implies that it’s a Sweet Stout. An obvious candidate for a dose of lactose, you’d think. Hang on. I think I’m missing something here. I’ve just taken a look at the Whitbread Gravity Book entries for Glucose Stout. And every example has an OG of around 1040º and an FG of around 1019º. I reckon Tennant used the Whitbread trick of adding the lactose after primary fermentation. I need to tinker with the recipe.

Right, that’s it fixed. 1.5 lbs of lactose is what’s needed. Without the Gravity Book to guide me, I would have got this terribly wrong. It’s much sweeter

Hang on again. The label goes on about the glucose content. I don’t see any in the grist. And the Gravity Book doesn’t mention the presence of lactose, which it often did. I reckon they’ve primed with glucose at the end of secondary conditioning and then pasteurised.

For some reason the enzymic malt and malt extract are missing in this case. As is the flaked maize. Perhaps that explains it. If the enzymic malt and malt extract are there to provide enzymes, they might not be needed here where there are no adjuncts.

It was mashed quite a bit warmer than their other beers. Presumably to produce a less fermentable wort.

Unlike all their other beers, there’s a single hop addition at the start of the boil. As it’s a bit more heavily hopped than most Tennant’s beers, the (calculated) IBUs are quite high at 29.

1956 Tennant's Glucose Stout
pale malt	5.50 lb	63.18%
crystal malt 60 L	0.33 lb	3.79%
black malt	0.125 lb	1.44%
amber malt	0.50 lb	5.74%
glucose	1.00 lb	11.49%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.25 lb	2.87%
caramel 1000 SRM	1.00 lb	11.49%
Fuggles 90 mins	1.75 oz
OG	1040
FG	1019
ABV	2.78
Apparent attenuation	52.50%
IBU	29
SRM	48
Mash at	152º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale