Let's Brew Wednesday - 1931 Thomas Usher Stout 80/-

In the 1930’s, genuine Scottish Stouts began to fade away as breweries concentrated almost exclusively on brewing Pale Ales.

This had some odd results. With some pretty strange Stouts gracing the brewing logs. This is an example of one.

It’s mostly to do with the grist. You may imagine that at least one type of roasted malt was essential to the flavour profile of a Stout. Not so in Scotland. They made do with pale malt and a load of sugar, sometimes, as in this case, with a little crystal malt included.

I’ve done some interpretation in terms of the sugars. These were the ones used in the original: 6 cwt. cane, 2 cwt. Penang, 2cwt. CDW, 1 cwt. Caramax, 1 cwt. DF. The first two sound like simple sugars. The next two are types of dark proprietary sugars, the last, I’ve no idea. A combination of No. 3 and No. 4 invert should come somewhere close.

As always with Thomas Usher 20th-century recipes, the hops are a total guess as there are no details in the brewing record. Substituting something like Cluster for the 120 minute addition wouldn’t be out of place.

1931 Thomas Usher Stout 80/-
pale malt	6.00 lb	61.54%
crystal malt 60 L	0.75 lb	7.69%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.75 lb	17.95%
No. 4 invert sugar	1.25 lb	12.82%
Fuggles 120 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 min	0.50 oz
Fuggles 30 min	0.50 oz
OG	1052
FG	1023
ABV	3.84
Apparent attenuation	55.77%
IBU	18
SRM	30
Mash at	148º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	120 minutes
pitching temp	60º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

This, and many other, excellent recipes appear in my definitive book on Scottish beer: