Weakest of the bunch was the oddly-named F. Which, at 1035º, was a pretty typical 5d per pint beer. If you think F is an strange name, what it’s short for might be more shocking: Family Ale. Which usually signifies a beer of fairly modest gravity to be consumed at home.
In 1939, it wasn’t that old of a product, only having appeared at around the end of WW I. It did have legs, mind you. I can still remember it in Leeds off-licence in the early 1980s. When it was basically a bottled version of their Mild. I’m guessing that this was a bottled beer, too.
The grist is pretty simple: pale malt (50% English, 50% Californian), a stack of grits and sugar. The latter is where things get tricky, as I’ve no real idea what the two sugars were. One is described as “A Dem”, where I assume the DEM stands for Demerera. Which I’ve interpreted as brown sugar. The other is even vaguer: “G & S”. Given the tiny amount, I’ve guessed that it’s some type of caramel. I can’t see what the point of such a small quantity would be otherwise.
The hops were a combination of 1937 Worcesters and 1937 and 1938 Kents. I’ve guessed at them all being Fuggles.
| 1939 Tetley F | ||
| pale malt | 4.00 lb | 55.10% |
| grits | 1.75 lb | 24.10% |
| brown sugar | 1.50 lb | 20.66% |
| caramel 2000 SRM | 0.01 lb | 0.14% |
| Fuggles 120 mins | 0.33 oz | |
| Fuggles 90 mins | 0.33 oz | |
| Fuggles 30 mins | 0.33 oz | |
| OG | 1035 | |
| FG | 1011.5 | |
| ABV | 3.11 | |
| Apparent attenuation | 67.14% | |
| IBU | 13 | |
| SRM | 5 | |
| Mash at | 150º F | |
| Sparge at | 165º F | |
| Boil time | 120 minutes | |
| pitching temp | 62º F | |
| Yeast | Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale | |
I was wondering why English brewers used all those long boil times, seen in all recent recipes and over a long period? Hop efficiency? Melanoidin formation? Also, I suppose they wouldn't do that if either energy was expensive, or if they didn't have efficient boiling setups? With a gravity like in this recipe, the brewer doesn't really need much boil-off to reach his target gravity, so I suppose that these setups are able to keep the wort boiling, without (or almost no) evaporation? But then, what about DMS? How did they get rid of it if there is almost no evaporation?
ReplyDeleteHi Ron,
ReplyDeleteI think that the G & S is shorthand for Gillman and Spencer Caramel
Cheers
Edd
700g of brown sugar and... 5g of caramel? It'd better be the really dark kind.
ReplyDeleteInSearchOfKnowledge,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why boil times were so long. As regard evaaporation, that depended on the brewery. London brewers tended to have closed coppers, Burton brewers, who wanted to maintain a pale colour, open ones.