Let's Brew Wednesday - 1949 Elgood XK

It’s good to look at breweries of different sizes. As well as the big urban ones like Whitbread and Courage, small rural breweries like Elgood.

This is a good example of an Ordinary Bitter in times of austerity. 1949 was a difficult year. Average OG had increased a little since its nadir in 1947, but only by one point, hitting the dizzying heights of  1033.43º. Which meant there had to be plenty of beer below 1030º. You weren’t going to get plastered on XK, not even with grim determination.

There aren’t any real surprises in the grist, other than that it has a base of mild malt rather than pale malt. Their stronger Bitter, PA, had a base of mostly pale malt with a little mild malt. It’s the classic English combination of malt, flaked maize and sugar. With a little malt extract on the side. That seems to be very common in 1950’s recipes. I think it’s for enzymes, but I’m not sure.

The sugar is described as simply “invert” and “Silcose”. I’ve chosen to interpret that as all No. 2 invert. Other guesses are possible.

I’ve no idea what the hops are, other than that they’re English. Fuggles seems a fair enough guess, but Goldings would be equally valid. You can take your pick.

The original mashing scheme was 15 minutes at 147º F, followed by an underlet that raised the mash temperature to 155º F where it was held for 1.75 hours.

1949 Elgood XK
mild malt	4.75 lb	83.92%
crystal malt 60 L	0.33 lb	5.83%
malt extract	0.25 lb	4.42%
No. 2 invert sugar	0.33 lb	5.83%
Fuggles 145 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1026.5
FG	1006
ABV	2.71
Apparent attenuation	77.36%
IBU	23
SRM	6
Mash at	155º F
Sparge at	167º F
Boil time	145 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	WLP025 Southwold