Barley Wine Before WW II

WW I did no favours to Barley Wine. No-one could brew one in the years 1918-1919 because of government restrictions on gravity. But when the dust had settled its production did start up again. Albeit in pretty small quantities.

The war had affected gravities, but not quite as drastically as some other styles. Bass No. 1, for example, had an OG of 1115º before WW I. After the war it was weaker, but just by a few degrees.

Barley Wines remained powerful beers, as the average of the samples in the table shows. Average OG in the interwar period was in the low-1040ºs – less than half that of the Barley Wines.

As a pretty niche product, Barley Wine wasn’t produced by anything like every brewery. Two of the two biggest brands – Bass and Truman – were both brewed in Burton, where there was a long tradition of brewing very strong Ales. As far as I’ve been able to discover, Mann and Watney were the only breweries in London producing one.

At first sight, some examples have a surprisingly high degree of attenuation. The highest, Mann’s Barley Wine, is over 90%.  Which is a lot for a beer of its strength. But remember some beers in this style still underwent a long secondary fermentation. Which might well have included Brettanomyces. Taking that into consideration, the attenuation doesn’t seem that unreasonable.

Barley Wine before WW II
Year	Brewer	Beer	Price per pint (d)	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	colour
1921	Bass	No. 1		1094	1032	8.06	65.96%
1923	Younger, Geo	Malt Wine		1078	1016	8.12	79.49%
1923	Younger, Geo.	Malt Wine		1083.4	1023.9	7.76	71.34%	69
1927	Bass	No. 1 Barley Wine		1105	1035	9.13	66.67%	70
1929	Younger, Geo	Sparkling Malt Wine		1076	1013	8.27	82.89%
1932	Mann	Barley Wine	22	1096	1011.9	11.15	87.60%
1932	Truman	No.1 Burton Barley Wine	24	1097.3	1017.8	10.49	81.71%
1933	Mann	Barley Wine	22	1094.8	1006.9	11.71	92.72%
1934	Bass	Prince's Ale (brewed 23/7/1929)		1112.8	1029.2	11.00	74.11%
1935	Bass	Barley Wine		1109	1023.3	11.32	78.62%
1938	Mann	Barley Wine	21	1092.9	1026	8.74	72.01%	100
		Average		1094.5	1021.4	9.61	77.56%
Sources:
Thomas Usher Gravity Book document TU/6/11 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive.
Younger, Wm. & Co Gravity Book document WY/6/1/1/19 held at the Scottish Brewing Archive.
Whitbread Gravity book held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/001.