Let's Brew - 1944 Adnams PA

I'm quite enjoying the 1944 theme to my hombrew posts, so why stop now? Especially when I already have so many recipes written from that year. There's a good reason for that.

It's all connected with my next book, which is about brewing in WW II. I'm sort of getting back to my original book concept, which was a history of UK brewing 1700 to 1973. Two of my most recent books, Armistice! amd Austerity!, are really chapters of that book. Which shows how overambitious the ptoject was. The completed book would have been over 2,000 pages.

But let's get back to the recipe in hand. As Adnams beers were comparatively weak in 1939, they underwent a surprisingly small change in strength during the war.

Their Bitter, PA, started the war at just 1039º and, though it had fallen by 1944, it was just by three gravity points. Bugger all, really, compared to the beers of some other breweries. In general beers brewed in fairly rural locations, such as Southwold, tended to be weaker than those brewed in large urban centres.

The biggest change in terms of the recipe is the addition of an unmalted grain. Pre-war, Adnams beers were all brewed from just malt, hops and sugar. In 1943, however, the government dictated the use of oats, in response to a bumper crop. But that only lasted one year. The next, the government decided brewers should all use a percentage of flaked barley. Which is what we see in this iteration of PA.

As usual with Adnams, I know little about the hops other than that they were all English and from the 1942 and 1943 harvests.

1944 Adnams PA
pale malt	7.25 lb	87.88%
flaked barley	0.50 lb	6.06%
No. 1 invert sugar	0.50 lb	6.06%
Fuggles 120 mins	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1036
FG	1010
ABV	3.44
Apparent attenuation	72.22%
IBU	27
SRM	4
Mash at	149º F
After underlet	151º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP025 Southwold