Let's Brew - 1940 Barclay Perkins X (Dark)

Even this early in the war its effects were starting to be felt by brewers and drinkers. X has had 3º skimmed off its gravity.

There have been some changes to the grist, too. The quantity of pale malt has been massively reduced, replaced by more mild malt. Flaked rice arrives in place of flaked maize. But there’s about 50% less of it, the slack being taken up by No. 3 invert. I’ve added an extra 0.25 lb of No. 3 invert to allow for the primings, which raised the effective OG by about 2º.

The base malt was rather more complex than at first sight. The pale malt was split evenly between Hama (Middle East) and Californian. While about a third of what I have as mild malt was actually SA malt. Malt made from foreign barley wouldn’t be around for much longer as, for various reasons, imports of brewing grains dried up.

If you use the recipe below, but swap out 0.25 lbs of No. 3 for No. 1 invert, you’ll get the pale version of X. To get the colour right for the dark version, you’ll need to add sufficient caramel to raise it to 20 SRM.

The hops are also more complex than at first sight. They’re all Mid-Kent Fuggles from the 1939 harvest, but there are three different types.

1940 Barclay Perkins X (Dark)
pale malt	0.50 lb	7.01%
mild malt	3.75 lb	52.59%
crystal malt 60 L	0.33 lb	4.63%
amber malt	0.25 lb	3.51%
flaked rice	0.75 lb	10.52%
No. 3 invert sugar	1.50 lb	21.04%
caramel 1000 SRM	0.05 lb	0.70%
Fuggles 90 mins	0.75 oz
Fuggles 60 mins	0.50 oz
Fuggles 30 mins	0.50 oz
OG	1034
FG	1008
ABV	3.44
Apparent attenuation	76.47%
IBU	30
SRM	15
Mash at	144º F
After underlet	152º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	90 minutes
pitching temp	61º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale