I just noticed this in some William Younger records for 1940.
It shows how ullage - returned beer - was being added at racking time. Sounds like a good way to fuck up your beer. 10 hogsheads (15 barrels) for a batch of 135 barrels. That's about 10 ullage.
Funnily enough, it's always the same beer: LAE. Not sure what it was. Perhaps it was a pasteurised bottled beer. Then the slops might not do too much harm. Pretty sure it was some sort of Pale Ale, judging by the hopping rate, which was relatively high. At least by Scottish standards.
They only seem to have mixed in ullage a few times. Either that, of they didn't record it in the brewing log.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of when I was a cellarman in the Mariners pub in Blackpool in the mid 80s. Part of my job was to collect the slops (spillage) from the bar and filter it back into the hogshead barrels. We sold 22 hogsheads of Boddingtons a week (yes, not kidding, it was probably the biggest seller of Boddingtons in the NW of England at the time). And I have to say that, if you know what your doing, there is no problem. It did not impact on the beer in any way. We filtered twice through paper filters, and always made sure to not add too much to each barrel. I guess it was an art, and I was taught by the masters :-).
Its funny that I always thought this was a standard practice in real ale houses (I used it in several pubs over the years, and always had excellent reviews of the quality of my beer), but as I discussed the with people in the last few years I have begun to get the impression that maybe it was not so acceptable.
What do you think?.
Hi , I used to go in The Royal Oak Shinfield Green near Reading which was a Morlands pub in the early seventies and the landlord regularly tipped the slops into your pint when he poured it, I never complained it seemed to be normal, I would complain now , their Mild was lovely The Royal Oak was directly next door to The Bell and Bottle and a British Legion Hall across the road so plenty of choice ,the Royal Oak is now a Co-Op convenience store
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