Drybrough Burns Ale 1936 - 1954

After my general bullshit about Scotch Ale, here's a chance to see what happened to one particular example across WW II.

You could be excused for thinking that I'm war-obsessed. Though I sort of am. Is that wrong for a pacifist? Or totally appropriate? Don't bother answering either of those questions. I'll be destroying my sleep pondering them in bed tonight.

Drybrough is a wonderfully unfashionable brewery. Just the type I like. A typical one-recipe dull Scottish brewery. Then incorporated into the satanic Watney corporation to churn out masses of Keg Heavy. Not a brewery anyone seems to have fond memories of.

Their Burns Ale is a typical Scotch Ale of the post-WW I type. That is, just a super-strong Scottish Pale Ale. All the breweries, except William Younger, whose records I've seen brewed Scotch Ale this way. I think it's fair to assume this was the standard method.

They continued to brew Burns Ale at much its full strength almost all the way through the war.  Not sure exactly when they dropped it, but it seems to have been about when the war ended. Then returned sometime in 1948.

That's typical: the toughest years for UK brewing were the three or four aster the war ended.

Drybrough Burns Ale 1936 - 1954
Date	Year	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
12th Feb	1936	1084	1030	7.14	64.29%	6.30	2.48
12th Jan	1940	1083	1026	7.54	68.67%	6.03	2.31
8th Nov	1940	1083	1028	7.28	66.27%	5.53	1.86
6th Feb	1941	1081	1028	7.01	65.43%	4.35	2.01
9th Oct	1941	1081	1022	7.81	72.84%	4.90	3.08
29th Oct	1942	1076	1029.5	6.15	61.18%	4.74	1.47
5th Feb	1943	1076	1028.5	6.28	62.50%	4.89	1.55
22nd Jul	1943	1076	1027	6.48	64.47%	4.86	1.59
13th Jul	1944	1076	1025	6.75	67.11%	4.43	1.49
12th Oct	1944	1076	1032	5.82	57.89%	4.20	1.37
23rd Feb	1945	1076	1031.5	5.89	58.55%	4.02	1.26
11th Aug	1948	1070	1031	5.16	55.71%	4.33	1.30
20th Oct	1954	1073	1032.5	5.36	55.48%	4.67	1.40
Sources:
Drybrough brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number D/6/1/1/4 and D/6/1/1/5.