Saturday 15 June 2019

Let's Brew - 1944 Fullers BO

Continuing with my 1944 theme, here's another Fullers recipe. This time something a little stronger.

What would you do if you were a dedicated Best Mild drinker at the start of the war and were pissed off by the reduction in its strength? Switch to Burton.

By 1944, Fullers standard Burton, BO, was looking very similar to pre-war XX. Not so great if you’d been a Burton drinker, as its gravity had been reduced by around 25%. As BO was always part-gyled with XX and X, the recipes were obviously identical.

I wonder how many drinkers traded up like this? It seems that many Porter consumers switched to draught Stout after WW I. Post-war Stout being very similar in nature to pre-war Porter. You can see here how the balance between two change pre- and post-WW I:

Whitbread Porter and Stout 1914 - 1920 (barrels)
Year Porter London Stout Total
1914 123,085 13.67% 198,806 22.07% 900,636
1921 15,688 2.32% 133,563 19.77% 675,647
Sources:
Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/079, LMA/4453/D/01/086, LMA/4453/D/09/108 and LMA/4453/D/09/114.


Burton remained a mainstream beer, which is reflected in the batch sizes which were usually around 100 barrels. Smaller than those of X, which were 250 – 400 barrels, but around the same size of those of XX.

1944 Fullers BO
pale malt 8.25 lb 80.49%
flaked barley 1.50 lb 14.63%
glucose 0.25 lb 2.44%
caramel 1000 SRM 0.25 lb 2.44%
Fuggles 90 min 1.00 oz
Fuggles 30 min 0.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.50 oz
OG 1044
FG 1011
ABV 4.37
Apparent attenuation 75.00%
IBU 23
SRM 19
Mash at 147º F
After underlet 150º F
Sparge at 168º F
Boil time 90 minutes
pitching temp 62º F
Yeast WLP002 English Ale


Many more recipes (though not this particular one) are available in my excellent book, Let's Brew:



3 comments:

Martyn Cornell said...

Unfortunate name - "BO please, bartender" "Phew, mate, you've already got it."

Unknown said...

Are you planning a book on recipes from WW2 Ron?

Ron Pattinson said...

Unknown,

yes.