Fullers grists in 1946

Time to look at the ingredients Fullers were using in 1946, just after the war's end.

Little had changed since pre-war in terms of the grains Fullers employed. Other than Porter, which contained black malt, all their beers contained nothing other than base pale malt. The origin of the barley used to make that malt had changed. Gone were the Californian and Cape, replaced by more English malt. Not really surprising, as importing barley had been problematic and UK barley production had massively increased during the war. From 17,840,000 cwt. in 1939 to 42,160,000 cwt. in 1945. 

A change in adjunct, from flaked maize to flaked barley, was out of the brewery’s control. Driven by two factors: the unavailability of maize, which needed to be imported, and orders from the government to use flaked barley. Even breweries which had never used adjuncts before, such as Whitbread, were forced to have flaked barley in their grists.

The percentage of the malt in the grists fell a little, from around 80% to 77%. This was replaced by a little more unmalted grain and sugar, but it wasn’t a huge change.

The war had provoked little change in the sugars Fullers used, other than the addition of a new proprietary sugar, PEX. I haven’t the foggiest idea what was. But Fullers must have liked it as they were still using it in 1968.

The hops, as pre-war, remained all English and fairly fresh. In this case, as mixture of ones from the 1945 and 1946 harvests. Though there was also something called “hopulon”, of which 1 lb. was the equivalent of 7 lbs. of hops.

Fullers grists in 1946 (grains)
Date	Beer	Style	OG	pale malt	black malt	flaked barley
3rd Oct	X	Mild	1029.6	77.12%		15.42%
2nd Oct	PA	Pale Ale	1029.5	78.07%		16.26%
22nd Oct	P	Porter	1029.3	58.01%	11.60%	5.80%
25th Nov	BO	Strong Ale	1038.8	75.95%		16.16%
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery

Fullers grists in 1946 (sugars)
Date	Beer	no. 2 sugar	glucose	PEX	Intense	Sp. Dark	Carameline	London caramel
3rd Oct	X		3.67%	2.20%	1.58%
2nd Oct	PA	2.17%	1.63%	1.63%	0.24%
22nd Oct	P			3.87%		15.47%	2.62%	2.62%
25th Nov	BO		4.31%	2.15%	1.42%
Source:
Fullers brewing records held at the brewery