Let's Brew Wednesday - 1864 Lovibond XX

I have the luxury of having every single page of the Lovibond brewing book for 1864-65 photographed. Mostly because it’s one of the three brewing books I personally own.

That’s how I know that, contrary to expectations and usual practice, XX was Lovibond’s most popular beer. At every other brewery I’ve looked at, X Ale was the most popular. And while X was usually parti-gyled with XXX or XXXX, XX was always brewed single-gyle.

The gravity of XX Ale varied a bit, the weaker examples being around 1063º and the stronger ones 1069º.  Which places it in much the same class as the X Ale from the larger London breweries. Whitbread X, for example, was around 1066º at this time  and Barclay Perkins X 1062º

The malt bill is incredibly simple – just one type of base malt and that’s it. The hops are identical to those used in X Ale, that is Kent and American yearlings, plus new Kent.

1864 Lovibond XX
mild malt	15.75 lb	100.00%
Cluster 60 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 40 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 20 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1069.5
FG	1015
ABV	7.21
Apparent attenuation	78.42%
IBU	25
SRM	7
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	60 minutes
pitching temp	55º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

This is one of the dozens of recipes in my book Mild! plus. Which is avaiable in both paperback:

and hardback formats: