Let's Brew - 1971 Maclay Strong Ale

Let's return to the days of my youth. When orange juice IPA was just a fever dream. 

Maclay, like most Scottish brewers, produced a Strong Ale. But they discontinues it sometime in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. It returned in the early 1970’s, but only seems to have been brewed intermittently.

As you would expect, it was just a very strong version of their Pale Ale parti-gyle. The only recipe they used. It’s exactly what you would expect: pale malt, flaked maize and sugar. Note how little crystal malt was used in Scotland. Pale Ales usually contained no other malt than the base pale malt. Even in England, crystal malt was rare in Pale Ales before WW II.

Just like with the other Maclay beers, I’ve replaced proprietary sugar DCS with No. 3 invert. And guessed about the hops and dry hopping. As brewed the colour is much paler and you’ll need to add caramel to hit 20 SRM. The real FG might well have been lower, around 1020º, so don’t get too worried if it ferments out past 1029º.

1971 Maclay Strong Ale
pale malt	12.75 lb	76.12%
flaked maize	1.75 lb	10.45%
malt extract	0.50 lb	2.99%
No. 1 invert	1.25 lb	7.46%
No. 3 invert	0.50 lb	2.99%
Fuggles 90 min	1.00 oz
Fuggles 60 min	1.00 oz
Goldings 30 min	1.00 oz
Goldings dry hops	0.75 oz
OG	1077
FG	1029
ABV	6.35
Apparent attenuation	62.34%
IBU	30
SRM	20
Mash at	147/156º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

The above is an extract from my ground-breaking book on Scottish brewing:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/ronald-pattinson/scotland-vol-2/paperback/product-23090497.html