Drybrough 60/- 1938 – 1947

What fun research is. I've spent my evenings this week transcribing Drybrough brewing records. Quite a lot of work and not a barrel of laughs. Just stuff that has to get done.

As I've put in all that effort, it seems fair enough to bore you bastards with some of the results. Otherwise, I'll just have been frittering away some of my few precious hours left on this earth. Excuse me. A weird appreciation of my own mortality kicked in when I turned 60. Hence all my frantic writing activity.

Anyway, over to today's topic, watery Scottish Pale Ale. In the form of Drybrough 60/-/.

By far the most popular beer Drybrough brewed both before and during WW II was their 60/-. It was about 80%of what they brewed.

Which is interesting because it was well below average OG, in the late 1930s around 1043º. In terms of strength, it was around the same as Barclay Perkins Ordinary Mild, X Ale, but a good bit weaker than their Ordinary Bitter, which was 1045º.

Drybrough 60/- was pretty lightly hopped in comparison with London draught beers. 5lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt going into the war. When Barclay’s X Ale got 7 Lbs per quarter. Which makes 60/- look more like an English Light Mild than a Pale Ale.

The profile of gravity reduction is very different from WW I. There’s a dip in the first couple of years but then, between 1942 and 1946, a surprising stability. With another dip after war’s end.

The FG at time of consumption would have been lower. The figure I give in the table is the racking gravity. These were cask-conditioned beers which would have continued to ferment after racking. They were probably at least 70% attenuated when they hit the thirsty drinker’s glass.

Drybrough 60/- 1938 - 1947
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
14th Oct	1938	1038	1011	3.57	71.05%	4.83	0.76
19th Oct	1939	1038	1013.5	3.24	64.47%	4.93	0.76
3rd Jan	1940	1036	1013	3.04	63.89%	5.00	0.74
3rd Feb	1941	1037	1014	3.04	62.16%	3.94	0.63
11th Jul	1941	1034	1012	2.91	64.71%	3.90	0.54
2nd Feb	1942	1032	1015.0	2.25	53.13%	3.05	0.44
3rd Feb	1943	1032	1013.5	2.45	57.81%	3.98	0.51
14th Oct	1943	1032	1013.5	2.45	57.81%	3.45	0.48
17th Jan	1944	1032	1013	2.51	59.38%	3.45	0.45
13th Jul	1944	1032	1012.5	2.58	60.94%	3.58	0.50
8th Feb	1945	1032	1007.5	3.24	76.56%	3.55	0.46
8th Oct	1946	1029	1009	2.65	68.97%	3.44	0.43
23rd Oct	1947	1029	1012	2.25	58.62%	1.95	0.44
Sources:
Drybrough brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers D/6/1/1/4 and D/6/1/1/5.