Friday 5 June 2020

Scottish IPA during WW II

Trying to pick apart IPA and Pale Ale in Scotland is even trickier than in London. Judging by the brew house names, some brewers considered all their Pale Ales IPAs. And William Younger, confusingly, while not calling any of their beers IPA in the brew house, did market some of its beers as such.

I’ve frustratingly little information about Scottish IPA during the war years. But I can’t imagine that they lost the habit of randomly calling beers IPA.

The hopping rate, in terms of lbs. per quarter (336 lbs.) of malt, has fallen by 15%. Using that value takes the drop in gravity out of the equation. Per barrel, the fall is closer to 50%. There was also a considerable reduction in the dry hopping rate. Neither hopping rates had been particularly high to start with.

The IBU values may be calculated and may be a bit off from the real value. They do give an impression of just how little bitterness there was in this beer. Very far from the modern idea of IPA.


Wm Younger IPA Pale during WW II
Year Beer OG FG ABV App. Atten-uation lbs hops/ qtr hops lb/brl dry hops (oz / barrel) IBU (calc.)
1938 IPA Pale 1055 1013 5.56 76.36% 4.25 0.92 3.13 22
1944 IPA Pale 1044 1015 3.84 65.91% 3.65 0.64 1.98 15
1945 IPA Pale 1044 1016 3.70 63.64% 3.65 0.63 1.95 15
Source:
William Younger brewing records held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/3/77 and WY/6/1/3/89.

1 comment:

Chris Pickles said...

What was it with attenuation and the Scots? The 1938 example shows they could attenuate if they wanted but 3.7% from an OG of 1044 in 1945 is pathetic.

Why were they determined to produce beer that was so much weaker than they needed to? You would think with the war on they would have wanted to wring out all the alcohol they could