Let's Brew Wednesday - 1955 Tennant's No. 1

Tennant were an odd bunch. They didn’t content themselves with brewing one super-strength Barley Wine. No, they had to brew two.

This was their first, No. 1 Barley Wine. A classic dark interpretation of the style. Then, in the early 1950s, they came up with the idea of producing a pale Barley Wine. A beer which achieved fame and national distribution under the name Gold Label. For quite some years Tennant continued to brew the dark version.

There are a couple of odd features. Black and crystal are given in gallons, not quarters, for some reason. Though as they’re in the malt column, I’m pretty sure they aren’t some sort of sugar solution. Other than those, there’s only pale malt and a little flaked maize. Oh, other than a small quantity of enzymic malt which I’ve rolled into the pale malt.

For sugars there’s some No. 2 invert and malt extract. They loved malt extract in the 1950s. Still not really worked out why.

100% Kent Goldings, from the 1953 and 1954 harvests were employed as copper hops. Hallertau from 1954 made up the dry hops.

1955 Tennant's No. 1
pale malt	17.25 lb	77.53%
crystal malt 60 L	0.50 lb	2.25%
black malt	0.50 lb	2.25%
flaked maize	1.50 lb	6.74%
No. 2 invert sugar	2.50 lb	11.24%
Goldings 210 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings 40 mins	0.75 oz
Goldings 20 mins	0.75 oz
Hallertau dry hops	0.50 oz
OG	1101
FG	1027.5
ABV	9.72
Apparent attenuation	72.77%
IBU	61
SRM	25
Mash at	149º F
Sparge at	165º F
Boil time	210 minutes
pitching temp	57º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale