Let's Brew - 1916 Crowley Porter

This is about the last hurrah of full-strength Porter in the UK. A year later, all beer strengths were slashed, but Porter suffered particularly. And was doomed to live out it's final years as a low-gravity beer.

A couple of years into the war, not that much has changed with Crowley Porter. Other than a drop of a point and a half in the gravity.

The presence of oats is a giveaway that some of the Stout that it was parti-gyled with was marketed as Oatmeal Stout. The percentage of oats is quite high – actually enough to have an impact on the finished beer. Unlike in many London Oatmeal Stouts.

The malts remain a simple – for a black beer – combination of pale and chocolate malt. There have been some changes to the sugars, with candy and CDW being dropped.

The hops are English  from the 1914 crop plus Oregon from 1913. Barely any newer than those in the version from 2 years earlier, which contained hops from the 1912 and 1913 season. The age of the hops used and the reduction in the proportion of US hops have halved the (calculated) IBUs compared to 1914.

1916 Crowley Porter
pale malt	6.50 lb	65.00%
chocolate malt	0.75 lb	7.50%
oats	0.75 lb	7.50%
cane sugar	1.75 lb	17.50%
caramel 500 SRM	0.25 lb	2.50%
Cluster 135 mins	0.25 oz
Fuggles 135 mins	0.50 oz
Goldings 30 mins	0.75 oz
OG	1048.5
FG	1015
ABV	4.43
Apparent attenuation	69.07%
IBU	23
SRM	30
Mash at	150º F
Sparge at	170º F
Boil time	135 minutes
pitching temp	58.5º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley ale

The above is an excerpt from Armistice,  my this wonderful book on brewing in WW I.

There's now also a Kindle version.