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: