Crowley AK 1914 - 1919

By popular request - well, one person asked - more on AK. Surely you find the topic as endlessly fascinating as I? If not, what the fuck are you doing reading my blog? Where AK in one form or another is always bound to pop up every now and again.

This particular KK is from Crowley of Alton in Hampshire. Hand on, I'll just consult Barber to see what the hell happened to them.

Founded 1763, bought by Watney 1947, closed 1970. So I only missed it by a couple of years. Not that I was likely to have been down that way. Still never have, for that matter.

The table covers the years of WW I. Whay is that? Because those are the years I have for Crowley. I didn't harvest the records I have myself. They were passed on to me by Edd Mather (thanks, Edd). It is a good illustration of what happened to UK beer in WW I. Bit of a drop in gravity in the first two years, then all sorts of craziness in the last two.

It looks to me that they were deliberately boosting the attenuation in the later war years to keep AK at least vaguely intoxicating. Though the attenuation was never much under 75%.

The hopping rate was fairly constantly around 6 lbs per quarter of malt (looking at the hops per quarter rate effectivley takes the strength of the beer out of the equation). Though after 1915 the hops became progressivley older. In 1919 they were still using Oregon hops from the 1912 harvest.

Grists next. Very illustrative of the war they are, too.

Crowley AK 1914 - 1919
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
16th Jun	1914	1047.1	1011.1	4.76	76.47%	6.25	1.10
7th Jan	1915	1045.7	1008.9	4.87	80.61%	6.39	1.19
7th Jan	1916	1042.9	1011.1	4.21	74.19%	5.08	0.87
13th Jan	1916	1041.6	1011.1	4.03	73.33%	5.17	0.82
22nd May	1917	1033.2	1006.6	3.52	80.00%	6.19	0.83
10th Jul	1917	1036.0	1007.2	3.81	80.00%	7.00	0.99
1st Jan	1918	1033.2	1009.4	3.15	71.67%	6.25	0.83
4th Jun	1918	1030.5	1006.1	3.22	80.00%	5.85	0.70
23rd July	1918	1027.7	1002.8	3.30	90.00%	6.00	0.64
26th Sep	1918	1030.5	1006.6	3.15	78.18%	5.69	0.69
12th Feb	1919	1034.6	1006.6	3.70	80.80%	6.00	0.85
12th May	1919	1036.0	1007.2	3.81	80.00%	6.00	0.86
Source:
Brewing record held at Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, document number 37M86/2.