Saturday 21 March 2020

Let's Brew - 1916 Courage Double Stout

WW I and WW II went very differently when it comes to beer. In the second conflict gravities fell gradually until 1942, then stabilised until the end of the war. In the first war, therewere only minimal gravity reductions in the first couple of years. But after 1917 gravities were progressively slashed.

Which explains why Courage Double Stout still had a prettty decent gravity halfway through the war.

Parti-gyled with the Porter was Double Stout. A two beer parti-gyle, as Imperial Stout had been discontinued in 1915.

Like the Porter, the gravity of Double Stout has taken a hit. It’s now 10 gravity points weaker than in 1914. Though the grist was much the same.

The grist is near identical in terms of percentages: 60% pale malt, 20% brown malt, 10% black malt and 10% black invert. Which produces a pretty black beer.. So it makes you wonder the reasoning behind the one change, the addition of caramel.

The hops have changed a little. Unsurprisingly, the German hops have been dropped. There are still foreign hops, in the form of Poperinge (1915) and Californian (1914) as well as English (1914).


1916 Courage Double Stout
pale malt 9.50 lb 60.98%
brown malt 3.00 lb 19.26%
black malt 1.50 lb 9.63%
No. 4 invert sugar 1.50 lb 9.63%
caramel 500 SRM 0.08 lb 0.51%
Strisselspalt 120 mins 0.75 oz
Cluster 120 mins 0.50 oz
Fuggles 60 mins 1.25 oz
Fuggles 30 mins 1.25 oz
OG 1069
FG 1025
ABV 5.82
Apparent attenuation 63.77%
IBU 43
SRM 58
Mash at 152º F
Sparge at 159º F
Boil time 120 minutes
pitching temp 60º F
Yeast Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

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






There's now also a Kindle version.

3 comments:

Mike Austin said...

Ron,
I think that caramel rounds the flavour off a bit.
But don't tell CAMRA...........
Mike

dls5492 said...

This is an interesting recipe. I plan to brew it in the next couple of weeks.

dls5492 said...

Brewed this a few weeks ago. It is now in a keg. It is very black and roasty. I am going to let it age a little bit.