Gold Label is interesting for several reasons. It was the first pale Barley Wine, for a start. But one that became so popular, that for quite a while I thought colour was the main difference between Old Ale and Barley Wine. Old Ale dark, Barley Wine pale.
It was also aged in wood for around a year at this point. Which tells me that there was almost certainly some Brettanomyces character to the end product. That also probably knocked the FG down by a few points.
Finally, it’s much stronger than most beers brewed in the 1950s. There were only a handful of beers of a similar strength. Things like Barclay’s Russian Stout and Benskins Colne Spring Ale.
It’s not a particularly complicated recipe: pale malt, flaked maize and sugar. There’s quite a lot of the latter two, presumably in order to keep the colour pale. And it helps the rate of attenuation, which is pretty high for a beer of this strength.
The hopping is pretty heavy and there’s a long boil, which, in combination, leave the finished beer at over 70 calculated IBUs.
| 1956 Tennant's Gold Label | ||
| pale malt | 14.75 lb | 67.82% |
| enzymic malt | 0.25 lb | 1.15% |
| flaked maize | 4.00 lb | 18.39% |
| No. 1 invert sugar | 2.75 lb | 12.64% |
| Fuggles 230 mins | 2.50 oz | |
| Goldings 230 mins | 0.75 oz | |
| Goldings 60 mins | 3.25 oz | |
| Hallertau dry hops | 0.67 oz | |
| OG | 1103.5 | |
| FG | 1020 | |
| ABV | 11.05 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 80.68% | |
| IBU | 72 | |
| SRM | 9 | |
| Mash at | 147º F | |
| Sparge at | 165º F | |
| Boil time | 230 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 56º F | |
| Yeast | Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale | |
Interesting to compare to the 1954 recipe: the later one appears much paler (9 vs 17 SRM) although I'm not sure why, given the main difference is a couple of percent of no. 1 sugar and the paler one's boiled for longer.
ReplyDeletehttp://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2016/11/lets-brew-1954-tennants-gold-label.html
Hi Anonymous ,
DeleteThe final colour correction would have been made @ the bottling point , as the brewings of GL were blended,
Cheers
Edd
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteGold Label got paler over the years. According to the Whitbread Gravity Book, in 1954 it was 90 EBC, in 1956 45 EBC, in 1958 35 EBC and in 1965 26 EBC.
It's a pity it's lost its mojo. Gold Label Original'56 would have traction as a craft beer. By the looks of it ticks all my boxes: dry, bitter, strong, aged and only moderately hoppy.
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